Gathering the Arsenal (Bunker Pack part 1)
by Truthful nomad
Summary: Charlie Bradbury arrives from the Apocalypse world with her team of soldiers Jo Harvelle, Eileen Leahy, and Hannah, to prepare Sam, Dean, and Castiel for the invasion of Michael, but are also faced with this world's many challenges, including the impending extinction of the angels.
1. Chapter 1

Bunker pack Ch.1

 **Here's another fic I'm putting together featuring the apocalypse universe. Some long-lost special characters from the past! Hope you like it. As usual, I own nothing. And also, as usual, I would love a beta or a co-writer for this if anyone's interested.**

 **Trigger warning; this will be a pretty dark story with mentions of various types of torture and abuse. PTSD, trauma, etc.**

 **Pairings: Castiel/Hannah, Dean/Jo, Sam/Eileen, Charlie/Claire, Jack/OC**

 **Note:** ** **This is one of the very first SPN fics I ever wrote and most of it takes place before the end of season 13 as that's when I wrote it. Consider it AU for this reason.****

When Dean parked the impala in front of the massive stone structure almost completely obscured from view, he didn't know what to expect. From what he could see, it looked exactly like the bunker from Kansas, but the ominous forest it was buried in was nothing like the wide-open prairie they were used to, except for the fact that they were both located so far from civilization that getting to them was no easy feat.

"So just what was this anonymous tip you received, Sammy?" Dean asked as the two of them approached the entrance, their guns both at the ready. A thick misty fog hung in the air, and all around them were the brilliant orange, red, and yellow leaves of a forest in the midst of autumn. The thick smell of birch and pine permeated through the air.

"Just what it sounds like, Dean," Sam explained. "An anonymous tip. I've been mapping these bunkers. Apparently, the one in Kansas is connected to a network of men of letters bunkers that are scattered all over the world. Many are abandoned, like this one, and we hold the only keys that will open them. I found a few books that list some of their locations and they are all in remote areas like this."

"Great," Dean said with a smirk, as Sam inserted the key and opened the door. "I guess we found ourselves a whole lot of vacation spots."

"Yeah," Sam focused as they cautiously entered the compound, their guns ready for anything that might take them by surprise. After the incident with the other bunker in Jersey, neither of them were going to take any chances.

The interior of the bunker was just as Dean expected. It was identical to the one in Kansas in nearly every way. The brothers stood on the balcony level entrance overlooking the large main room which was lined with books, filing cabinets, and some antique chairs and conference tables. Even the furniture looked the same.

"I guess whoever built these things weren't going for originality," Dean commented as they descended into the main hall.

Just as they made it to the main hall, a slim figure stepped out from behind one of the bookcases on the rear wall. Dean recognized the red-haired woman and immediately lowered his gun.

"Charlie?" he murmured as the woman he'd come to know as a sister approached them, a grim look on her face. "You aren't our Charlie are you?"

"No, I'm not," she confirmed. Dean had only been back from the apocalypse world for a few weeks now, but he was still reeling from having experienced what life was like there and having encountered Charlie Bradbury. Seeing her had brought back so many feelings of guilt and remorse over the way _his_ Charlie had been so terrible butchered and how he and Sam had failed her in her time of need.

Now, suddenly, after so many years, she'd been thrust back into their lives, into his life anyway, since Sam hadn't seen her- until now.

"You're from the other world," Sam guessed, his tone of voice betraying his own feelings at seeing Charlie again. "The apocalypse world."

"How'd you get here?" Dean asked as they moved to stand in front of her. "How long have you been here?"

"We just arrived," Charlie explained. She wore a dark green jumpsuit, a belt across her waist bore an array of blades, pouches, and supplies. In many ways, she resembled the LAARP fantasy world character their Charlie had liked to roleplay as. But this was another woman altogether. This was a Charlie who was hardened to the harsh realities of the world she'd come from. The flirty, timid, geeky Charlie that they knew had been replaced by a cautious, grim version.

"We?" Sam asked as he and his brother gazed around, looking for any other inhabitants.

"My team and I," Charlie explained. "They're out surveying the area and laying out defenses."

"Defenses?" Dean questioned. Charlie motioned for the brothers to sit down at the wooden conference table and she sat across from them. "When I saw you, you said you didn't want to come to this world. That you and your friends needed to stay and fight."

"Yeah that was before we stole Michael's ingredients for opening the portal," Charlie pointed out with a shrug. "Some of the ingredients. Dean, we're here because you need our help."

"Help with what?" Dean started to see where this might be heading. He was just about to say as much when they were interrupted by a loud crash coming from somewhere in the back of the bunker.

The three of them were quickly on their feet; their weapons were swiftly drawn. Dean noted that Charlie had brandished a large angel blade as she faced the noise.

"Sam go check the perimeter outside," Dean ordered. Sam nodded and turned back for the entrance of the bunker while Dean and Charlie headed cautiously down the hall.

Another crash and a loud grunt came from one of the bedrooms. The bedroom that had they been in the Kansas bunker would be Dean's room. The door was left slightly ajar, and Dean swiftly kicked it the rest of the way opened and frowned at the sight.

Castiel was sprawled out on the floor while a brunette woman in a grey blazer coat threatened him with an angel blade. When the two of them both looked in their direction, Dean blinked. She was familiar. How could Dean have forgotten the little angel cult Castiel had found himself the leader of back in the Metatron days?

"Uh, Hannah, right?" Dean asked, lowering his weapon. The women frowned at the recognition of her name, but she quickly turned back to Castiel, eyes fixating on him as she moved back, letting him slowly get to her feet.

"Yes," she said timidly, not looking at Charlie or Dean, but focusing entirely on Castiel. Both angels looked as though they had just seen a ghost. And in Castiel's case, that might as well have been true since Hannah had been dead for almost three years.

"Hannah…" Castiel breathed, equally fixated on her. "How can…"

"She's with me," Charlie blurted out quickly to Castiel. Dean gave her a quizzical look, and she quickly corrected. "I mean… she's not _with_ me, not like that. She's part of my team. She's kinda our angel. And you…"

"From the apocalypse world?" Castiel surmised, glancing at Dean who nodded in confirmation. Hannah nodded.

"There… was a Castiel in my world," she said softly before shyly fixing her gaze to the floor. "He's dead."

"That is unfortunate," Castiel replied as he moved over to stand with Dean. "And… awkward."

Dean thought he saw some kind of emotion flash through Castiel's blue eyes, but he couldn't quite tell. The angel didn't have an extensive range of emotions, and he often had difficulty expressing the ones he did feel. But there was definitely something there. Dean never knew how close Castiel and Hannah had gotten years ago when they worked together, Cas had often kept his excursions when he wasn't with the Winchesters a bit of a secret, though Dean had suspected they had gotten close.

"Did you secure the rest of the place?" Charlie asked Hannah as the four of them headed back to the main room. Dean noted that Sam hadn't returned yet and felt concerned, but concentrated on Charlie, as he suspected she wasn't paying a house call here.

"Yes," Hannah replied curtly as they all took a seat back at the wooden conference table. Dean noted that Hannah no longer made eye contact with Castiel, and in fact, seemed to be trying to avoid his attention, as she sat next to Charlie, almost in a defensive posture, scooting her seat as close to Charlie's as she could get it.

"How did you find us, Cas?" Dean asked as the angel sat next to him. Castiel shrugged.

"I monitored the movements of the impala on occasion," he explained. "I admit I did not expect to find another bunker, nor did I expect to find Charlie or… Hannah…" he spared a glance in the angel woman's direction, but Hannah kept her focus.

"Hannah's been part of my team for about nine years," Charlie explained. "Ever since we liberated her from a death camp."

"A what?" Dean blinked. He didn't like the sound of that and Hannah seemed to visibly flinch at the mention of it.

"It's not important right now," Charlie said, sensing Hannah's discomfort. "Let me get to the reason we're here."

"Yeah I've been waiting for that," Dean said as he glanced in the direction of the entrance, wondering what was taking Sam so long. "You said something about Michael and us needing your help. Care to explain?"

"Yeah, Michael is looking for a way to get into this world so he can do to you what he's done to us," Charlie explained. "He nearly succeeded until my resistance group, and I stole the ingredients he needed. We used them to get here and help you prepare. There's nothing from stopping him from gathering the ingredients again, Dean and it's only a matter of time."

Dean and Castiel exchanged grim glances. They both knew what this could mean. If Michael got to this world, he could wage the same kind of human exterminating war that Charlie had just come back from. Dean shuttered to think of the invasion. He looked at Charlie.

"So you just came to warn us?" he asked.

"Not just warn you, prepare you," Charlie replied. "My team and I have been fighting angels all of our lives. We know what to expect. So that's the mission. Prepare for the invasion."

"Got it," Dean said. Just as he said that he heard the door creak open behind him and glanced up at the balcony deck just as Sam emerged, hands up against his head. Dean frowned, then his eyes lit up as he saw the two women who were holding his brother at gunpoint.

"It's okay, he's with us," Charlie called up to them. Then he glanced at Dean. "Dean Winchester, Sam, Castiel, meet the rest of my team. Eileen Leahy and-"

"Jo," Dean murmured, gazing up at the blonde haired woman who lowered the weapon she had fixed on Sam. She shot him a harsh glare when he said her name, but he didn't care. "Jo Harvelle."


	2. Chapter 2

Dean knew that the apocalypse world was just like their own, but it came as a surprise every time he was confronted with a long lost friend he'd thought he'd never see again. Bobby, Kevin, Charlie, and now Jo? But this wasn't the Jo Harvelle he had known so many years ago. This woman, like Charlie, had been changed by the hardships that she'd endured in her world. The way she looked, the way she carried herself, told him that she'd seen some unspeakable horrors in her lifetime.

Charlie had brought Sam and her team up to speed on Michael's plans. Clearly, she was the leader of the four women, and they looked to her as a source of strength. As the large group of them sat together around the conference table, Charlie sat at the head of the table.

"I think we should break up into teams," she was saying as Jo sat to her right and Dean sat to her left. "Jo here is the expert on weapons, specifically, angel killing weapons."

"What sort of angel killing weapons?" Castiel asked, glancing over at Jo with slight concern.

"All sorts," Jo replied with a smirk. Dean watched her as she stood up. She wore khaki green trousers and a black tank top; her wavy blonde hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. Dean remained silent, but he couldn't help letting his eyes roam over her bare shoulders and pale skin. She was skinny, alarmingly skinny, her skin hugged her bones, and Dean could make out a few old scars on her upper arms.

Dean must have let his eyes linger too long because she fixed him with a sharp glare before turning to retrieve a duffel bag that had been resting on the floor behind her. She placed the bag on the table and started unloading its contents. Dean's eyes widened as she began unloading what seemed like an endless array of assault rifles, bullets, handguns, knives of almost every shape and size, large bottles of holy oil, and piles of grenades.

"Damn," Dean muttered as he glossed over the pile of weapons. He glanced at Sam who seemed equally disturbed by the stockpile.

"So uh, these all kill angels?" Sam asked as he grabbed a knife, looking it over carefully. "Because we've found that the usual thing doesn't really affect angels."

"These will," Hannah pointed out. "I assisted in their creation." Castiel glanced at her, no doubt disturbed by the enthusiasm she seemed to harbor towards killing her own kind.

"Every bullet and every knife is coated with a special poison," Jo explained. "Holy oil mixed with a special blend of frankincense and myrrh blend which we discovered angels don't have much of a tolerance for."

"Well in this world, you won't necessarily be killing angels," Sam pointed out. "A lot of them we've met have been dicks, sure, but not all of them."

"I don't usually stop to ask questions," Jo pointed out with a sneer. "If it has wings I kill it."

Dean winced at the hatred etched in her expression as she said that. It was clear that the women at the table, even the angel woman, seemed to harbor nothing but hatred for angels. Dean felt more than a little uncomfortable for Castiel, who looked equally disturbed by this.

"I have not heard of myrrh and frankincense having any effect on angels," Castiel pointed out as he examined the arsenal.

"Fine then, go ahead and test it on yourself," Jo said hotly, sneering at Castiel with pure venom in her eyes. Castiel shrunk back a little, holding up his hands.

"Alright house rules," Dean began. "No one ganks angels unless you are sure they are working for Michael, got it? And no one ganks that angel," he gestured to Castiel. Hannah only looked away, not saying anything, while Jo merely rolled her eyes and sat back down.

"Okay everyone, calm down," Charlie's confident voice brought everyone's attention back to her. "We're supposed to be planning, right? Dean, we don't know about your world, and you don't know about ours, so we're all going to have to fill one another in."

Dean glanced at the brunette sitting in between Jo and Hannah who hadn't spoken at all yet. Dean remembered Eileen from a year ago when she'd worked with them, and he knew Sam had kept in touch with her up until her death, but he never really got to know her that well, and he had no idea what to make of this Eileen, other than she seemed to be the more reserved of the bunch.

"So what's your specialty, sweetheart?" Dean asked, talking slowly as he remembered that although Eileen was deaf, she could read lips.

"I fix things," she explained. "And I'm good with technology. And I'm probably the only hunter left on our earth that actually hunts monsters."

"She rigged a few computers and cell phones for us since the angels destroyed Earth's wifi capabilities," Charlie explained. "She figured out how to hack into the abandoned satellites in orbit."

"What do you mean actual monsters?" Sam asked curiously. Eileen shrugged.

"You know, ghosts, vamps, things like that," she explained as if Sam should have known. "With everyone focused on angels, they forget that those things still exist. Ghosts especially considering they sort of out number humans these days."

"Good point," Sam said with a slight grin.

"Eileen was solitary before hooking up with us," Charlie explained. "She was orphaned long before the apocalypse broke out."

"Alright," Dean said, slapping his hands together purposefully as he glanced around the table. He felt like he was at some kind of office board meeting and he was starting to get a little bored. "Who's ready for some action?" He eyed a few of Jo's weapons, spotting a few blades and an assault rifle.

"This is serious, Dean," Sam warned. He turned to Charlie. "What do you need from us, Charlie?"

"Well I think we should work in groups," Charlie responded. "Eileen, I think you should help Sam find all the bunkers."

"I already tracked down a few," Sam said. "But it would be hard because they are scattered all over the world. I mean it's not like we can go check out each one of them."

"Well we have bunkers in our world," Eileen explained, signing with her hands as she spoke. "Men of letters bunkers. They're all abandoned since there aren't any more men of letters, but I was exploring an old one, and I discovered they all have a little trick."

"Trick?" Dean raised a brow. "What sort of trick?"

"In the garage, a few of the car stalls are rigged with some kind of teleportation device. It's inside the concrete floor." Eileen spoke slowly. "It's linked to all the other men of letters bunkers in the world."

"Our own teleporter," Dean looked at Sam and grinned. "Who knew? See Sam; I told you I was Batman."

"How do these transporters work?" Sam asked, focusing on Eileen. Dean recognized his interest; Sam was apparently impressed with Eileen's men of letters knowledge, even if it was just in her world.

"I haven't managed to figure it out yet," Eileen explained. "I haven't been in many bunkers, but I read about them. I think it has something to do with a demon and an angel's ability to teleport."

"Anyway, I want you two to find all the bunkers and set of defenses in each of them, they'll be our bases," Charlie explained. "Oh and rig them up the best you can, I want to know the minute Michael is in this world."

"I have a few tricks," Eileen said confidently. Castiel spoke up. "I would like to find Gabriel," he offered.

"Cas, Gabriel doesn't want to be found," Sam explained. "If he did, he never would have left."

"I believe his captivity has… what's the word… spoked him. I believe I can convince him and I think I know of some places I can look for him."

"Hannah, go with him," Charlie instructed, and Hannah visibly tensed, looking at Charlie with alarm and fear in her eyes. Dean frowned. The angel woman seemed mortified at the prospect of going anywhere with Castiel. "Sorry, Hannah, but we all have to do this," Charlie said, sympathetically.

Castiel seemed upset at Hannah's reaction to working with him but said nothing for it. Both angels seemed uncomfortable with one another. Dean wondered what might have happened to Hannah to make her so terrified.

"I cannot fly," Hannah said softly, looking at Castiel for only a second before quickly turning away. "My wings are broken."

"I have a vehicle," Castiel pointed out. "We will find him." Hannah only nodded, carefully avoiding eye contact with him.

Dean glanced at Jo and gave her a wink. "Guess I'm working with you, baby," he said with a teasing smirk. She raised a brow at him for his boldness.

"Call me baby again, and I'll show you work," she warned before looking at Charlie. "What do you have for me?"

"Rig some weapons and get some supplies," Charlie ordered. "We'll need lots of it. Take charge of the defenses of every bunker. Teach Dean some of those angel killing moves."

"I've ganked a few angels in my time," Dean pointed out. "This isn't my first dance."

"Yeah well my weapons are special," Jo pointed out. "I know how to rig them up."

"Okay I think everyone should coordinate with each other," Charlie said. "Sam and Eileen with the bunkers, Dean and Jo on weapons, Castiel and Hannah on finding the archangel, and me on raising an army. Let's focus on the mission and win this war."

That was the one thing they could all agree with. Dean shuddered at the thought of this world turning into the desolate wasteland that he had seen when he was in their world. He felt conflicted about working with Jo. Although he couldn't help a little flirtatious teasing, he fully intended to take her seriously. He owed her that much, after all.

He still blamed himself for her death at the hands of hellhounds, and he also knew that he was partly to blame for the life this Jo had to endure. After all, it was his mother who said no to Azazel in their world, thus preventing his and Sam's birth, and they were unable to stop this. Somehow, that made it their fault. He needed to make it right for her.

"What about you, Charlie?" Eileen asked curiously. "What will you be doing?"

Charlie turned to Dean. "I'm assuming you have some sort of hunter's network here?" she asked. Dean nodded. "Well, I'll get in touch with them. We need an army."

Everyone seemed clear on their orders. Dean was impressed by this new take charge, Charlie. She knew how to rally the troops, and it was clear from Jo, Eileen, and Hannah's actions, that they all looked up to her, as they obeyed her orders without question, no matter how they might be bothered by who they were working with.

"Check back here in a few days," she instructed as the group dispersed to carry out their orders.


	3. Chapter 3

Castiel stepped on the gas of his old '78 Lincoln. He was lucky to have found it again after nearly two years. After his death earlier this year, he had been unable to retrieve his truck but was happy to find this car in a junkyard, in need of rescue.

Glancing at the passenger seat, Castiel had mixed feelings about working with Hannah. The two of them alone together in this car brought back memories of their travels together, or the friendship that had developed between them. But it also brought back memories of her violent death a year later, something he hadn't been able to forgive himself for.

Hannah sat against the passenger side door, gazing out the window. Silent. She had refused to talk or to even look at him for the past few hours. Castiel hadn't wanted to question her or to pry into her past, but it bothered him that this was not the Hannah he had known all those years ago. The confident, strong-willed, brave soldier Hannah he had known had been replaced by this shy, timid, withdrawn angel who seemed terrified of him. He wasn't quite sure how to talk to her, so he thought of their mission.

"Gabriel can likely be found in a place of opulence and iniquity; it's where he had been hiding before."

She said nothing at all, just glanced in his direction, acknowledging him. Castiel sighed. "Hannah," he said, "you don't… I'm not going to hurt you. It would be best for this mission if we were able to be open with one another."

"I don't know you," she responded softly. "You are not the Castiel from my world. You are just another angel…"

Castiel glanced at the road ahead, pondering her words. "Yes, I believe that was established at our first meeting," he replied. "Tell me about him. The Castiel you knew. Where you close?"

As Castiel waited for her to respond, he found his thoughts wandering to heaven and the angels here. On his recent meeting with Naomi. He'd harbored animosity towards Naomi for what she'd done to him in the past and had been less than pleased at seeing her alive, but he'd put that aside the moment she told him how few angels there were. He was one of the last of his kind, and nothing could soothe the immense sorrow he felt and knowing this. He knew the angels held little love for him, that they mostly loathed him, but he felt, deep down, no matter what he'd done, he needed their approval. That's why he continued to walk the fine line between loyalty to the Winchesters and devotion to the angels. Because all he wanted to be was an angel and even after all the things, they'd done to him, knowing he may never get the chance to win back their approval hurt in ways he never thought were possible.

"We worked together," Hannah's voice brought Castiel back from his thoughts. Perhaps she was the one angel in creation who didn't hate him. She didn't know him enough to hate him. At least that's what he thought. "We were colleagues."

"Under Michael?" Castiel kept making quick glances in her direction as he kept his eyes on the road. She never once turned to look at him, she kept her eyes glued to the scenery outside the passenger window. But he saw her shutter ever so slightly at the mention of Michael.

"Under Raphael," Hannah corrected. Castiel raised a brow. He hadn't considered that Raphael might be alive in the alternate world, considering the fact that he was dead in this one.

"Raphael," Castiel repeated. "Then he had a separate agenda?"

"He was in charge of certain… camps where humans were kept," Hannah hesitated as if it was causing her distress to continue with this talk. After a long pause on her part, Castiel let out a sigh and pulled the car over to the side of the road. She looked at him with apprehension.

"I don't know what crimes the angels are guilty of in your world," Castiel began, turning his full attention to her. "I don't know what Raphael did, what Michael did, I don't know what crimes my counterpart may have participated in-"

"Crimes?" she gasped with a confounded look as if she could hardly imagine he'd think that. "Your counterpart committed no crime."

"Then why are you so afraid of me?" Castiel insisted she tell him. He could sense it was painful and he hated forcing her to confess anything to him when it was apparently traumatizing for her, but he didn't see any alternative. They would find it difficult to work together on this mission if he didn't at least try to get through to her somehow. That Hannah he knew, she must be in there somewhere.

"I'd rather not say," she insisted, looking away from him again, trying hard to ignore that he was even there. Castiel sighed in frustration and reached out to touch her shoulder- something he instantly regretted.

She might have jumped entirely out of the car if there wasn't a roof above her. She gave out a yelp, "No, no!" she exclaimed, shrinking away from him as fast as she could. She fumbled with the car door, trying to get free, nearly falling out of the car when the door finally gave way.

Castiel quickly got out of the car and hurried around it to her as she scrambled to her feet and braced herself against a tree, holding her arms up in defense as her arms began to glow white.

Castiel stood his distance, holding up his hands cautiously. "Are you going to blast me with holy white light?" he asked as he watched the brilliant light form along her arms and hands. Her body trembled in fear as she squeezed her eyes shut in a grimace.

"I'm sorry," Castiel offered, not daring to come closer, even though he desperately wanted to reach her somehow. To calm her fears. He'd never imagined that she would have such a reaction to his touch. What could have happened to her?

Slowly the light in her arms faded and she lowered them, letting her body slump slowly down the tree as she curled into herself, hugging her arms around her knees and bracing her head against them. Castiel watched her for a moment, then cautiously moved closer, kneeling down in front of her. He waited. Said nothing.

"He died," she said after a time, her voice muffled as she buried her face in her knees. "The Castiel I knew… he died."

"You mentioned that before," Castiel replied slowly, he tried to search for words. He tried to reach for her again but stopped. He realized then what a broken, frail image of an angel she was. Angels were strong, hardy beings, and although they could feel things deeply, at a molecular level, it took a lot to reduce one to this. Castiel thought of Gabriel. How broken he had been. It made Castiel sick to think someone had done something to Hannah to reduce her to this level of trauma.

"I want to help you, Hannah," he urged as she lifted her head to look at him. He winced in sympathy when he saw tears glistening in her blue eyes. She looked at him as if noticing him for the first time.

"He and I were among the angels in charge of Raphael's camp," Hannah explained slowly. "Michael has launched a campaign of extermination upon humans, but a few, had been spared for labor and in case Michael may have use of them. Raphael was in charge of these camps, and he employed angels to guard the humans in the camps."

Castiel frowned, disturbed that his counterpart would have taken part in this abuse of humans. But he stayed quiet, encouraging her to continue.

"It bothered me how the humans were being treated," Hannah admitted. "I started to help them. At first, it was little things. Bringing them food, blankets… then I started to help them escape."

"And you were caught?" Castiel listened to her intently, not liking where this was heading. Hannah nodded.

"He caught me. My Castiel. I suppose he had suspected it. I should have been more careful. But I convinced him to help me, and he did, for awhile but… then Raphael caught us."

Castiel winced. He didn't have to imagine what Raphael might have done. "It's okay; you don't have to say anymore," he said. "You were brave, Hannah. It was right of you to help them."

Hannah shook her head. "My Castiel, your counterpart, was put to death for helping me. I got him killed! And I had to watch… what they did to him, it wasn't quick. And what they did to me after he was gone." Hannah looked away, squeezing her eyes shut.

Castiel watched as she stayed, huddled in against herself. There was still a lot she wasn't telling him, but he didn't need to know. Whatever Raphael had done to her had affected her so much, she couldn't even bare to be touched. No wonder she was so afraid of him. Castiel felt nothing but rage when he thought of Raphael and Michael and found himself hoping they found a way to get in here because when they did, he'd be ready for them and he'd make them pay for what they had done to Hannah.

"Hannah," he urged softly. She looked at him as he reached his hand out cautiously, waiting for her to take it. She looked at it hesitantly, as if she wasn't quite sure it was really there. Reluctantly, she put her hand in his, and he stood up, hoisting her up to her feet.

"I hate angels," she said, a bitter tone in her voice, raising her eyes up to meet his. "I've hated them for so long; I don't think I could ever stop hating them. So I joined the human resistance and fought to help destroy as many as I could. Is that wrong of me, Castiel?"

Castiel honestly couldn't answer her. He couldn't imagine hating his own kind. Even after the things he had personally endured because of them. Naomi's memory altering, the countless times he'd been hunted, tortured, and rejected. Even after all they'd done, he didn't hate them. Until now. Hearing what Hannah had been through made him sick. He felt revulsion for the angels in the apocalypse world. That they could be capable of such abhorrent things, to hurt Hannah the way they had, and then have the audacity to think of her a traitor when she had the courage to stand up for humans.

"I don't know," he said after a while. "Hannah, I would be lying if I said I didn't need your help. I do. Our people, here, in this world. The angels are dying. They're going extinct. There are less than a dozen of us left. We are the last of our kind."

Hannah stayed quiet. She squinted in disbelief, "I will help," she agreed. "I'll help you find Gabriel. And I will follow Charlie's orders. But I won't say I'm doing it for the angels." Castiel nodded and together, uneasily, they headed back to the car.


	4. Chapter 4

"That was interesting," Sam said as he put a hand on his torso, hoping to stop his stomach from flipping around inside of him. He glanced at Eileen as the two of them stood in one of the empty car stalls in another men of letters bunker.

"Yeah it takes some getting used to," Eileen said, signing with her hands as she spoke. "It's not the smoothest way to travel, but it's the quickest."

Sam recovered enough to stagger walk slowly out of the car stall and glance around the garage. There were a few classic cars; Sam didn't think it looked any different than the bunker in Kansas, or the one in Maine that they had just come from. In fact, he wouldn't even know where they were without Eileen to tell him.

"So how do we know this thing worked?" Sam asked as he followed her up the stairs into the main part of the bunker.

"We figure out where we are," Eileen replied as if Sam should have known that. "According to the map, we should be somewhere in Central California." He smirked as he turned to her. She was still the Eileen that he remembered. Independent, strong-willed, and tough. Unlike the others of her team, who were clearly dealing with some psychological trauma, Eileen seemed none the worse for ware.

"Can I ask you something?" he asked as he sat down at the table and watched her fumble through her pocket to pull out a cell phone and began tinkering with it. She glanced up and him.

"Shoot," she said, focusing her attention on him as he signed to her.

"I know you all must have seen some terrible things over there," he began, starting out slowly. He didn't want to make assumptions or to pry into her past. "You don't seem to have jumped on the 'murder all angels' bandwagon."

Eileen shrugged. "Oh I don't mind taking out those winged bastards," she corrected. "They destroyed my world. And I've spent more time in one of their slave camps than I'll ever want to. But I suppose I'm taking it a little easier than Jo or Hannah Or Charlie because I didn't lose anyone I was close to. My parents were already dead. Killed by banshees when I was a baby. I've been on my own most of my life."

Sam listened to her, watching her sign as she spoke. He smiled as he followed along with her signing. He'd taken sign language when he was at Stanford, but he had never been very good at it. Meeting Eileen, _his_ Eileen a few years ago had compelled him to brush up on it; he'd picked it up pretty good and had even taught a few things to Dean. When Eileen died so suddenly, Sam had continued to study it; somehow he thought it would honor her memory.

"Yeah I get it," Sam said, signing back to her. "Being on your own. It still must have been hard."

"In a way, it was easier," Eileen replied. "Before the apocalypse, I grew up an orphan in Ireland. I spent a little time with the woman who found me; she raised me to be a hunter. But when she died, I went from foster care to foster care. I grew up to be independent, but it was difficult when society still expects you to find a job and a white picket fence somewhere. After the apocalypse, I felt like I could live the way I chose to."

"That makes sense," Sam said. He watched her from across the table. A few times, he had to remind himself that she was not the Eileen he knew from before. She was just like her, both in appearance and personality. Sam felt glad that the horrors of the apocalypse hadn't destroyed her spirit. Her strength, her jovial attitude, her determination and devotion to the people she cared about, it had all survived unscathed.

"So how did you get involved with working with Charlie?" Sam asked. He glanced around the bunker, knowing they should probably figure out where they were and what their next move would be. But he allowed himself to be a little sidetracked in exchange for getting to know Eileen a bit better.

"Jo," Eileen explained. "She and I were in a prison camp together for about a year. She was pretty shaken up after they killed her mother. With Hannah working on the inside and Charlie planning an invasion from the outside, we all managed to escape. The four of us have been inseparable ever since. Charlie, Jo, and Hannah, they are the sisters I never had." Eileen frowned at that, looking down at the table. Sam waited for her to make eye contact with him again.

"What is it?" he signed, looking at her with concern.

"Well I told you I handled the apocalypse well because I didn't have anyone left to lose," Eileen explained. "But now I do. My sisters. It scares me a little."

Sam got up and came around the table to stand in front of her. Kneeling to her level, he reached up and placed a hand on her shoulder, "hey I can't say this world is any safer than the one you came from," he said. "We're in the middle of our own impending apocalypse here, with Lucifer lose and the angels going extinct. But I can promise that Dean, Cas and I will do everything and anything to protect you and your family. Because Dean and Cas, they are my family and I know how much it hurts to face losing them."

Eileen studied his face for a moment, a serious look on her face, before eventually breaking into a small grin. "Maybe we will be the ones protecting you," she signed. Sam chuckled at that.

"I have no doubt," he said sincerely. "You'd kick any demons ass."

"Right, I can," she confirmed. She put her hand in his, and he stood up and hoisted her to her feet. He couldn't miss the chemistry building up between them, even in the short time they'd known each other, but he turned his focus to the task at hand.

"We should find out where we are," he said. He grabbed his duffel bag, handed her hers, and headed for the exit.

Coming out of the bunker, they were greeted with the sun bearing down on them. The weather was a stark difference to the cool, breezy autumn weather in Maine. It was late September, but Sam had been in California enough times to know that the heat was typical. As was the rolling hills and the brown grass they found themselves surrounded in.

The bunker was situated on top of one of these rolling hills. Below them was a two-lane highway and what looked like some kind of service station or restaurant. Sam spotted a few cars scattered in the tiny parking lot surrounding the building. He glanced at Eileen, "you hungry?"

Eileen shrugged. "Seeing as how I've lived off of grilled whatever we can find for the past eight years, I'm always hungry."

Sam glanced at his cell phone, taking note that it was about nine in the morning, California time. He glanced at Eileen, "well then we have to get you a breakfast you'll never forget."

They walked the short distance down the hill, through the drought-stricken barren grass, up to the front of the diner. There was a row of semi trucks off to the side, signaling to Sam that this was probably a diner that catered to travelers and truckers. Seeing as how there were no other buildings as far as he could see up and down the highway, it was probably the only place around.

Stepping inside, Sam and Eileen were greeted by a simple hometown diner with a western feel. If Sam didn't know any better, he would have thought they were back in Kansas. A middle-aged woman in a waitresses apron hurried over. "Sit anywhere you like," she said and Sam, and Eileen moved to sit at the nearest booth. "You two look like a nice young couple, just passing through are you?"

"Where are we?" Eileen wanted to know as the waitress brought them some coffee. The waitress looked confused by the question.

"We're lost," Sam explained, trying to come up with a cover-up story. "Our car broke down a few miles away, and we're just trying to get back to a town."

The waitress looked at them suspiciously, "let me get you folks something to eat," she said quickly, her eyes darting around the diner as if she was looking for someone. "I'll get you the house special, how's that?"

"Uh well we could use a menu," Sam suggested, puzzled at the unexpected discreet way the waitress was talking to them.

"No need, the special's on us, just tell us how you like your eggs, hon," the woman said quickly. Sam glanced at Eileen who just shrugged, squinting at the woman.

"Uh over easy," Sam said reluctantly. The woman made a quick b-line back to the kitchen. Sam turned to Eileen. "I wonder what that was all about," he asked.

His questions were answered a moment later when two men in button down shirts came over and simple slid into the booth with them. Sam was a little surprised as he quickly moved over to accommodate the red haired man who sat next to him while the dark bearded man sat next to Eileen.

"No one invited you," Eileen pointed out. The men looked her over, no doubt noticing the way she spoke and the way she watched their lips.

"Are you hunters?" the bearded man said in a hushed voice. Sam raised a brow, taken aback.

"How'd you know?"

"Because you're liars," the red haired man said simply. "You didn't come from the road you came from that bunker up on that hill."

When Sam opened his mouth to protest, the bearded man held up a hand. "Don't bother," he explained. "We may not be able to get inside, but we know when someone's in it. Who do you think owns the land it's on?"

"And Percy here has it rigged to send us a notification when someone ever goes in," the red haired man said.

"This place is disguised as a truck stop," Percy pointed out. "But a lot of hunters pass through here. We recognized your M.O. as soon as you came in here."

Sam sighed. "Well since you know, maybe you can tell us where we are," he asked.

"You're in Central California on highway 41, about 25 miles away from Paso Robles," Percy explained. "And we have an assignment for you."

"Assignment?" Eileen asked. "We're already working on our own assignment. It's called save your asses from the world ending."

"We know all about Lucifer and Michael," Percy said. "Do you think news like that doesn't get around pretty quick in hunter's circles. Anyway, we have something for you that could help us all out. In Paso Robles, there is a train station. It runs from LA to San Francisco. We tracked some vamps to the area and we think the nest is somewhere near the train station."

"So you want us to find the nest?" Sam asked. "If you are all hunters, why can't you do it yourselves?"

"Because the vamps, they knew you were coming, Sam Winchester," the red haired man replied. Sam frowned at the recognition. "We caught one and interrogated him, seems they knew you'd be coming sooner or later. Does Samuel Campbell ring a bell to you?"

Sam froze, biting his lip at the mention of his grandfather. He nodded slowly. "Yeah he was my grandfather, he's dead."

"Well apparently you two went on quite a killing spree back in the day and the vamps are out for revenge." Percy said. "This is your chance to clean up whatever trash you tracked into our town. Do it quick."

With that, the two men got up and left just as the waitress brought them their food. Eileen looked at Sam, clear questions in her eyes. This wasn't what Sam was expecting and he didn't want to be reminded of the year he had gone without a soul. That entire year was still mostly blank to him and he felt a sickening feeling in his gut over what he and Samuel Campbell might be guilty of in this town.

"I uh, don't really want to talk about it," he said to Eileen. "Just… how are your vampire killing skills?"

"Not bad," Eileen replied, her voice betraying her skepticism as she kept her eyes fixed on him. Sam realized there would be questions later, and he couldn't help the feeling of guilt that welled up inside of him whenever he thought of all the things he may of done or said when he didn't have a soul. He had a bad feeling he was about to be confronted with another dark piece of that year and he wasn't going to like what he was going to find.


	5. Chapter 5

Dean glanced behind him as Jo trailed behind him, clutching her rifle protectively like it was a lifeline. Eyes darting nervously at the trees, tensing at every little noise, it was clear she was expecting something to come jumping at them at any moment.

After parking the impala about a few miles back where the forest got too dense, they'd headed out into the woods in search of a haunted mansion. It was early evening, and the sun had just begun to make its descent.

"Look, I know how it is in your world," he spoke out as he slowed his pace to match hers, lugging his duffle bag over his shoulder. "I paid a few visits."

"How long did you stay?" Jo asked, glancing at him with a slight sneer as she walked.

"Only a few days each visit," Dean admitted. He clutched his sawed-off shotgun casually in one hand as he walked.

"Well then you don't know anything about what the past eight years have been like," Jo snapped defensively. "You only saw bits and pieces."

Dean sighed at her defensive attitude. He had to keep reminding himself that she didn't know him, she wasn't the Jo he'd known before. Somehow, he wanted to see that the Jo he knew was still in there, but this girl had been changed. Hardened, no doubt, but the past eight years of living an apocalypse. She was an anxious, defensive, but most of all, angry woman.

"Why are we looking for some mansion anyway?" she demanded as she walked beside him.

"Apparently it's some 17th-century orphan house for girls," Dean explained as he recalled the conversation he'd had with the local hunters earlier that day. "The girls and the teachers were accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake back in the day. It's probably haunted. But according to my sources, it's also the location of some local hunter's secret arms cache."

They walked together in awkward silence for what seemed like ages. Dean glanced beside him every now and again only to see Jo ever on the alert, clinging to her rifle. He was about to say something, trying to fill the silence, when he noticed the silence around them. No birds were chirping, no sign of life whatsoever. Dean was instantly on alert, raising his shotgun up protectively.

"Something's out there," he murmured quietly, instinctively moving closer to Jo, ready to defend her. When he got a little too close, she huffed in annoyance and shoved him away.

"Back off, White Knight," she growled as she lifted her rifle. "Worry about yourself."

Dean rolled his eyes at her attitude. He recognized it though. His Jo probably would have reacted the same way to him trying to protect her. She had always been fiercely independent, if a little reckless due to her youth and lack of experience. But this Jo had none of that reckless streak. She was a honed warrior. There was nothing amateur about her anymore, and Dean had to keep reminding himself of that. Dean was impressed, but also a little sad. This was a girl who had grown up too fast. He knew how that felt.

It was then as he glanced towards the trees that he saw a shadowy figure burst through onto their path. Dean aimed his weapon at the thing as it scrambled up to its feet, revealing itself in its full grotesque form.

"Werewolf," Dean said. Before he could say more, Jo reacted, shooting the snarling werewolf man multiple times in the chest.

"Wait!" Dean grabbed her. "That won't help," he explained, but there was no time for a lesson on werewolves because the bullets didn't even slow the creature down and Dean pulled Jo back just in time before it launched itself at her. The two of them turned back and ran through the forest, but were halted.

More werewolves burst from the bushes. Dean reacted quickly, pulling two silver knives from his belt and handing one to Jo. "Silver," he explained. He tried to dig into his pack, but he didn't have the time to fish out his silver bullets. The werewolves were closing fast. As they came in, Dean saw an opening and grabbed Jo's hand.

"Come on," he exclaimed and bolted off into the forest, the dense bushes lashing up against him. Jo hurried after him, and the werewolves gave chase. They ran and ran, Dean, beginning to feel winded, glanced around for cover. He spotted the clearing and the ominous building almost hidden in the brush.

"I think that's the house," he said, pointing. "Hurry!" The two of them ran full speed for the dark wood building, vines growing all over it, decay etched into the wood and bricks. Dean yanked the door opened and slammed it shut as soon as he and Jo were safely inside.

Dean gasped, catching his breath. As he glanced around, he knew this place wouldn't hold the werewolves out for long. It was clearly in an advanced state of decay; paint faded from the walls, the wooden floor broken up and barely walkable, the furniture ruined. And Dean had remembered his contacts telling him the place was haunted.

"Come on," he told Jo, leading her into what looked like the kitchen area. It was made of stone and stucco, 17th-century wood-burning ovens and open pits lined the walls, as did rusted pots and pans and tableware, there were a few fancy tables.

Dean put his bag on the table and quickly fished out the bullets, handing her some and loading his own weapon, he promptly went about prepping the place. He pulled out some salt and some powdered silver and began lining the doorways, windows, and any other access way.

"This should keep those douches out there and us in here," he told her. When he finished, he turned his attention to her as she loaded her rifle, gasping for breath after their run. Sweat glistened on her body, and Dean couldn't help but admire her attractive form. She wore a pair of faded green khaki trousers and a black muscle shirt tank top showing off her bare arms and her slender frame. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a loose pony tail, out of her face.

"What are you looking at?" she sneered and he turned away quick, slightly embarrassed about being caught staring.

"Nothing," he lied before turning his attention to his bag. He felt her eyes on him and turned back to her, her brown eyes practically drilling a hole into him. He sighed. "Look we might be stuck here for a while, at least until dawn. The werewolves should leave us alone then, and the spirits can't get past the salt lines."

"Those were werewolves?" she wondered as she cleared a spot on one of the tables and sat down, raising a brow at him.

"Yeah," Dean was surprised she didn't seem to know anything about werewolves. "What you don't have them in your world? The Jo from this world knew what they were."

"Yeah well I'm not her," Jo shot back. "And I do know what they are. My father was a hunter; I probably grew up the same way she did. Roadhouse for hunters, father killed in a hunt, that whole thing. Until the apocalypse. Michael and his army did a pretty good job of cleansing the planet of monsters and humans alike. Werewolves and vampires were mostly extinct; I don't know anyone who's seen one in the past eight years."

"Guess Sam, and I would be out of a job in your world," Dean relaxed a little. He knew they'd have to leave the kitchen eventually to find the weapons cache and eventually to deal with the werewolves, but for now, they were safe. That is if the smell of mold and decay and the stale air didn't get them out first.

"Yeah, no offense but you probably wouldn't last long in my world," Jo pointed out as Dean positioned himself precariously onto the floor, leaning against the dilapidated cabinetry, as he dug through his bag for what they might need for the night. He frowned.

"What makes you say that?" he asked. "Do I look like an amateur to you?"

She shrugged, a small smirk spreading across her mouth. "Maybe," she said. "You strike me as someone who hasn't dealt with many dystopian worlds."

"I'll have you know I spent a year in purgatory," Dean replied with a feigned look of indignance. "Not to mention that lizard jungle place. Oh and the reason we haven't had any apocalypses here is because my brother and I prevented them. More than once."

Jo sighed and looked at her hands, "must be nice," she murmured. "Not having to live in caves, eating rat soup, seeing everyone you care about killed."

Dean winced at that. "We've lost plenty," he pointed out. He thought about the last time he'd seen Jo and winced more before looking across the room to her. "Hey Jo, I'm sorry," he said, trying to convey in sincerity what he was feeling, and what he felt the second he'd seen her. He knew she wouldn't know what he was talking about, and sure enough, she gave him a puzzled look.

"Sorry for what?" she asked.

"Just… our Jo, the Jo from this world. She deserved better."

Jo studied him for a moment before moving to sit down on the floor beside him, turning to face him. Dean gazed at her, feeling uncomfortable at having her suddenly so close to him. Within arms reach after so many years. He'd almost forgotten the way she'd made him feel back then. Although they'd kept each other at arms length, always teasing but never acting on their mutual attraction, it was always there, though they both tried to deny it. Now, after losing her, and after all these years, all those feelings were threatening to come rearing back. He knew it wasn't her, this Jo wasn't his Jo, but she looked, she acted… the way she smiled, her sarcastic bantering with him.

"Was she one of those people you claimed you lost?" Jo asked seriously. He nodded, and she continued cautiously. "What happened to her?"

"Hellhounds," Dean replied, wincing at the memory, before turning away from her gaze, suddenly feeling the need to clean his shotgun. "About eight years ago. I guess it was about the time our two worlds separated."

"Sorry," she offered with a shrug. There was a pause, a silence between them before Dean reached into his bag and pulled out a bag of miscellaneous candy bars.

"Here," he offered with a kind smirk. "Field rations." She took a few, and as he watched her eat, he couldn't help but smile. "When's the last time you had a fully loaded bacon cheeseburger and a beer?"

Jo groaned at the thought. "Damn don't talk about that right now," she said. "I'd give my own soul for a cheeseburger. I don't remember the last time I had a nice steak, a rack of ribs, fries…"

Dean chuckled. "Well you've met the right man," he said. "I'm the king of red meat and booze. And pie, of course, love me some pie."

"Yeah and I'm sure you aren't limited to apple pie are you," Jo said, raising a brow suggestively as she waited for him to catch onto her subtle lewd reference. Dean chuckled, catching on.

"Yeah what makes you say that?" He tried to play it off as though he didn't know what she was talking about.

"Don't play dumb, I know what you've been looking at since you first saw me," she accused, a sly grin gracing her lips. "And don't think it's going to get you anywhere either."

"I've been a perfect gentleman," Dean insisted, feigning innocence.

"Now's the part where you tell me that you and your world Jo were passionate lovers and she couldn't get enough of you?"

Dean sighed at that, turning serious. She frowned at his expression. "No," he corrected. "It wasn't like that. Jo and I were friends. That's all. Well, aside from the raging crush she had on me." He smirked a little at the last bit, and she rolled her eyes.

Jo shrugged, and thought about something for a moment, her brows arched in deep concentration. "Well if we survive this, you owe me a burger," she said. "And I can't say I'm into the whole lovey-dovey stuff, I really don't have time for it. And it never pays off anyway, best not to get close to anyone. But if you're interested in any kind of 'last night on earth' action, I might take you up on it."

Dean frowned. Usually, he'd be all over an invitation to a no strings attached romp in the hay, but this was Jo, and it shocked him that she even suggested it. She was so casual about it. And he surprised himself when he found himself shaking his head. "Yeah normally I'd be all over that," he admitted. "But I'm going to have to think about it."

Jo scoffed. "What, because I'm not your Jo and you'd never disrespect that poor innocent girl like that?" her tone of voice changed as she narrowed her eyes at him. "Oh please."

"Hey don't talk about her that way," Dean warned defensively. "You don't know."

"Yeah whatever," she whirled away from him, turning her back to him, curling into herself. They stayed silent for the rest of the night after that, both lost in their own thoughts, the hours passing away.

Dean listened to the stillness of the house. He thought he heard movement in the distance, but he was confident about his salt lines. Eventually, Jo drifted off to sleep, curled uncomfortably against the cabinet. Dean sighed and draped his jacket over her as he sat staring into the darkness, wondering what would come next.


	6. Chapter 6

Armed with the address and an extra key, Charlie made the 30-hour drive from Maine to Kansas in two days. Using a small car she had managed to hotwire, she had a lot of time to think. She never thought she'd see the beauty of a peaceful world again. The change of scenery as she crossed the country was awe-inspiring after the past eight years.

It had been a long eight years, and Charlie never imagined she'd be the leader of this stalwart women. Jo, Eileen, and Hannah had become her family, her people. The months and years spent living in caves, dodging angel raids, living off rats and wondering if they were going to live to see the light of the next day, Charlie had made a vow that no matter what, she'd protect the women who had become her sisters.

And now her sisters were scattered about this other world, this tranquil, peaceful world, but even with the distance between them, Charlie knew they would continue to operate as a single unit. They'd work together to do what they always did. Survive.

As Charlie pulled her car up to the bunker, she gazed around the open prairie, nervously. Wide open spaces were the last place you'd want to be located in her world. Angels could rain death on you from the sky. Caves, mountains, and forests were the safest places, although angels often found a way to get into those too.

She parked her car and came into the bunker and was startled by the fact that the lights were on, there was a duffel bag sitting on the main table and a set of car keys.

"Hello?" she called out loud, quickly reaching for the small handgun on her belt. Sam and Dean had assured her that the place was warded against angels, but Charlie wasn't taking any chances.

The young woman who appeared in the room, her own gun drawn, surprised Charlie. "Who are you?" she demanded defensively, aiming her gun up at Charlie as she stood on the balcony looking down at her.

"Friend of the Winchesters," Charlie explained, clutching her own gun. The two women found themselves at a draw. "Name's Charlie, what's yours?"

The young woman stayed silent, arching a brow. She kept her weapon at the ready. Sighing, Charlie lowered her gun, holding her hands up to indicate peaceful intentions. Finally, the woman did the same. "Claire," she said. "Claire Novak."

Charlie descended the stairs down to join Claire in the main room. "What are you doing here, Claire?" she asked curiously as she put her gun back into her belt and put her own duffel bag down on the table.

"I was looking for Sam and Dean," Claire explained. She stood there watching Charlie for a moment, brushing her long blonde hair back out of her face.

"They're working a case," Charlie said hesitantly, not knowing how much she should tell this girl she just met. That Sam and Dean were working on a case involving the end of the world was probably not something she wanted to tell Claire at the moment.

"And Castiel?" Claire asked as she sat down at the table, looking up at Charlie. "He's with them?"

Charlie nodded. "What did you need them for?" she asked. Claire shrugged.

"I guess it doesn't matter," she said, reaching for her duffel bag. "I should go."

Charlie could tell she wasn't telling her the whole truth. She reached out to touch Claire's shoulder as she moved past her. "Hey, you don't have to go," she said. "I mean I could use your help if you're up for it."

Claire turned to look at her. Charlie noted she looked pretty young. "First, how old are you?"

"I just turned 21," Claire responded, narrowing her eyes. "What do you care? I'm a hunter, lady."

"Yeah I'll bet," Charlie said, rolling her eyes. This girl was barely old enough, and Charlie bet she didn't have much experience with hunting. "Look this stuff, the things Sam and Dean are involved in, its sort of hard core so I was just making sure you were going to be old enough to deal."

"You don't know anything about me," Claire snapped defensively. The two women eyed one another for a long pause as if trying to figure one another out. Charlie gave a long sigh after a pause.

"Yeah well, I guess you have to start somewhere," Charlie said. "Here," She turned to her duffel bag and pulled out a slender rifle and handed it over. Claire took it cautiously before giving Charlie a puzzled look.

"Look I need to reach out to hunters," Charlie explained. "As many as we can reach. I'm sort of trying to raise an army."

"Great, what are we hunting? Claire gave her a bright smile, holding the rifle against her. "Werewolves? Vamps?"

"Angels," Charlie explained, and Claire's expression immediately fell. Charlie looked at her. She couldn't quite make out that expression. Fear? Anger? "I take it your familiar?"

"Yeah," Claire said slowly, sounding preoccupied as her eyes fell to the floor. Charlie watched as she set the rifle on the table and slowly sunk down into a chair, looking at her hands. "What did they do?"

Charlie sat down in the chair next to her, leaning forward to focus in on her. "First tell me who you are to Sam and Dean," she insisted. "Why did you come here?" Claire shrugged.

"I just needed to get away," she explained as she stared at her hands, not looking up at Charlie. "Thought this was the best place to start."

"Away from who, your parents?" Charlie prodded at her, prompting her to keep talking. Claire looked up at her, a snarky sneer on her face.

"No one understands me at home," Claire explained. "I want to be a hunter. I'm really good at it. Jody thinks I should go to college, lead some normal life and I just can't do it."

"So you're out for a little adventure?" Charlie guessed, grinning a little. She couldn't say she related. Her life had been one harrowing adventure after another in the past eight years, and she could honestly say she'd had her fill of adventure, but she could vaguely remember what it was like to have that kind of life. A life when things like getting along with parents, getting into the right college, trying to figure out what you were meant to be in life, were all so important. Now they all seemed to trivial. She almost longed for the days when she was in college, trying to squeeze by on a student's salary, living off of ramen and take out. Part of her wanted to take Claire by the shoulders and shake her, trying to make her understand how good she had it, having a family and a house to live in.

"Yeah," Claire said after a time. "I guess I just want to get out there. Get out on the road, travel, hunt. You know, like Sam and Dean."

"Well I have to say you picked a bad time to come here to find yourself," Charlie replied. "But you're here now I guess. You can tag along with me. But first, stop avoiding my questions."

Claire shrugged. "I'm uh their cousin," she said hesitantly. Charlie narrowed her eyes suspiciously. She detected the insincerity in her voice and didn't believe that for a second. "I'm their cousin from South Dakota."

Yeah, right," Charlie said rolling her eyes. "Like that sounded sincere. Look, I don't have time. I need to find hunters, you want to tag along, we'll have to play 20 questions later."

With that, Charlie and Claire headed out of the bunker on their way to an adventure of their own.


	7. Chapter 7

The drive into Las Vegas was not an easy one for Hannah. They had been surrounded by the endless beauty of the desert. It seemed to stretch on forever, and it filled Hannah with wonder. She'd never imagined that Earth could be this beautiful, this serene, and tranquil.

The sun was coming over the horizon, and it's orange rays split across the sky like thunder, illuminating the grassless expanse below. In the distance, Hannah spotted a lone coyote crossing the desert not far from the road. It darted off for the far away hills as they sped by.

The Earth that Hannah had seen was a far cry from this. It was a desolate waste littered with bodies, the sky an endless cloud of despair. The massive angel spikes jutting from the ground designed to snag falling angels were notably absent.

And then, with little warning, the peaceful landscape was interrupted as they sped into the city. Gradually, but quickly, Hannah was surrounded by people, other cars, and towering buildings. She immediately felt anxious, and though she hadn't meant to, she uttered a soft gasp as, a few minutes later, they came upon the Las Vegas strip.

"Are you alright?" Castiel asked, and Hannah glanced at him. His eyes were fixed on the road as the activity outside the car forced him to stay alert, but when he could spare it, he glanced at her with concern.

"Are they all like this?" She asked softly. She tried to steady herself, taking long breaths. "Human cities?"

"I'm afraid so," he responded, apologetically. "It can be unsettling. Didn't you experience this in your world?"

Hannah shook her head. "I had little cause to leave heaven until after the apocalypse," she explained. "Then I was ordered by Raphael to help guard the human camps. It was my first encounter with Earth in thousands of years. Much of the landscape was in ruins by the time I left heaven."

Castiel was silent, though he continued to dart a glance in her direction from time to time. "I'm sorry, but Gabriel likes to dwell in places like this," he explained. "We would not be here otherwise."

Hannah watched him, regarding him for a moment. After her meltdown, they had said little to one another; the drive had been quiet. He'd shown her kindness, understanding, she hadn't meant to share the horror she'd lived through with him, but he hadn't tried to press her for more information.

She was thankful for that. She'd been plagued with hauntings of the past ever since she first laid eyes on him back in Maine. He looked like her Castiel, he spoke like him. She felt inundated with mixed emotions that she didn't know what to make of.

Most angels didn't become burdened with emotion, most lacked the ability to develop feelings or passions, but Hannah had. From the moment she had first arrived on Earth, her Earth, she had begun to feel them. Gradually, slowly at first, they were easy to ignore. But they'd begun to awaken within her, becoming harder and harder to brush aside. Every time she'd seen an angel abusing a human, it moved her.

It was emotion that had compelled her to finally take action, and it was emotion that still drove her. The feelings followed her, stayed with her through her torment. Every moment, every day that she had endured Raphael's abuse and torture, her emotions came further and further into focus. Hatred, anger, fear, these were things she had honed within her, she had clung to them for so long.

Charlie and her human sisters had taught her how to interpret feelings, how to control them and how to harness them. Hannah had seen what passionate creatures humans were, and as her own passions developed, it was Charlie, Jo, and Eileen that helped her make sense of them.

But none of them had prepared her for the possibility of seeing Castiel again. Even if he wasn't the Castiel she knew, he felt familiar, and it scared her. She'd never gotten over his loss and her guilt over it, and now, here he was. He was the same gentle, kind, compassionate angel she'd known.

"I have emotion," she announced softly as she eyed the people, cars, buildings around them, feeling trepidation as Castiel slowed the vehicle as traffic slowed to a trickle.

"Tell me what you are feeling," he responded as he maneuvered through the cars towards the hotels and casinos that made up the Las Vegas strip. "You aren't planning to jump out of the car, are you?"

"I don't like this," she informed him, feeling her breath become increasingly hard to draw in as her heart hammered in her throat. "So closed in… I can't, Castiel…" she urged him, looking at him pleadingly.

"Close your eyes," he instructed, looking at her sympathetically. "And trust me."

She looked at him, wincing from the intense anxiety welling up inside of her, the feeling was almost suffocating. It was a strange sensation, as she didn't need to breathe, being an angel, but in this instance, it felt as though she couldn't get enough oxygen. She gasped, again and again, as a thick fog seemed to envelop her mind.

"Hannah," Castiel's calm, yet firm voice cut through the fog, suddenly very audible. "I'll help you through this. Just do as I instruct you." He reached with one hand, holding his hand up before her as she tensed.

Hannah hesitated, staring at his hand. She'd had an extreme aversion to physical touch. The pain, the torment, the abuse, the way Raphael and the other angels had used physical contact to hurt her, it left a scar so deep, she couldn't bear the sensation of having another touching her skin.

Castiel seemed to be aware of this, as he only held his hand out to her, willing her to make the first move. "You don't have to," he said, "but it'll help calm your feelings."

Hannah wasn't sure if she could trust Castiel, but she desperately wanted to. She swallowed, trying to swallow her fears as she finally placed her hand in his. His hand was warm but unmoving; he allowed her to control the gesture.

"Now close your eyes," he instructed, and she did so, laying her head back in her seat. "Tune out the noises you hear and focus on my voice."

With effort, Hannah willed her mind to focus on the sound of Castiel's calm voice, on the feeling of the warmth in his hand. As he spoke, he kept his hand in hers. "We're almost there," he said calmly.

It was working. The fog began to ebb away with every word as he continued to give her words of encouragement. This went on for a long while until she hadn't even noticed that the car had stopped.

"Open your eyes," he said. Hannah focused back into the world around her and found it was quiet. When she opened her eyes, she found they were in a parking structure. It was dark but quiet. She glanced over to see him looking intently at her, his hand still suspended in the air, supporting hers. "Better?" he asked.

Hannah nodded sincerely, slowly taking her hand away as he moved to get out of the car. She felt much calmer as she watched him walk around to her side of the vehicle, and open the door, kneeling down in front of her. "How did you learn to do that?" she asked softly, looking down into his face.

"Sam Winchester," he said with a small smirk. "He's had to try a similar technique with Dean many times before Dean resorts to irrational violence as a means of expressing his emotions. He claims it has saved the destruction of many of their possessions many times."

Hannah studied Castiel's deep blue eyes, as he gazed up at hers. "Is this where we will find Gabriel?" she asked softly, vaguely aware of other emotions that she couldn't quite interpret.

"Yes," he said. He moved to stand up but frowned. "There will be large crowds," he explained. "And noises. You will not be able to close your eyes to it."

Hannah winced, feeling afraid. "Must I?" she asked, pleadingly, dreading the sensations, especially without the protective shell of the car.

He nodded sympathetically. "I'm afraid so," he said. He held up his hand again. "I know you are frightened of this," he said. "Whatever they did to you, it's caused this fear you have. But if you let it go, just once, and trust me, I promise nothing will hurt you."

Hannah hesitated. It went against everything she was to trust anyone but her sisters. Especially another angel. But Castiel had helped her so much already. He'd been calm through the turbulence of her emotions, had been understanding, kind, and patient; she felt compelled to give him her trust. If only for the moment. She finally reached forward and grabbed his hand, squeezing tight, as if trying to get used to the feeling of his skin in hers.

He stood up and hoisted her to her feet, and the two walked through the parking structure. He led her to the elevator.

He hadn't been lying when he had warned her of the crowds and the noises. She was instantly assaulted by the sound of the casino around her. Humans everyone, talking, shouting, the sounds of machines, the blasting lights of various colors, all around her brought her anxiety right back.

Sensing her emotion, Castiel squeezed her hand as he led her through the crowds. "Don't let go," he insisted as people moved past them, some brushing past her, making her jump.

The managed to make it to the reception area of the hotel, and Castiel guided Hannah to the desk. Hannah stayed close to him but pulled out of his hand to grip the smooth, cool wood of the reception desk. As Castiel spoke to the woman behind the counter, Hannah was suddenly aware of a presence. She glanced over and met eye contact with a large, bulky man who stood just a few feet from her. Dressed in a suit, holding a briefcase, he flashed her a suggestive grin.

"First time to Vegas?" he asked as he slicked back his greying hair. He glanced towards Castiel. "Husband?"

At first, Hannah wasn't sure he was talking to her, but he moved closer to her, which promptly made her tense up. "No," she said, responding to both questions in a tone that conveyed her disinterest in him.

"Tell me did it hurt when you fell from heaven?" he asked with a wide grin. "Because you are as pretty as any angel I ever saw."

Hannah was bewildered by that statement, "yes of course it hurt," she responded curtly as if it should have been obvious. At that moment, Castiel turned and saw the situation.

"Come on, Hannah," he said, grabbing her hand again, before fixing the man with a warning glare. Hannah followed him as he led her away, leaving the man in their wake.

They made the journey up to their hotel room quickly and swiftly, and as soon as they were inside, Hannah let out a breath of relief.

"I don't understand," Hannah murmured as she sat down on the edge of one of the beds while Castiel moved to the window and glanced down at the view below. He glanced at her and shrugged.

"That is what is called a pickup line," he explained. "He was trying to impress you with his weak attempts of flattery."

"He brought up the fall of angels," she said distastefully. "He couldn't know what it felt like."

"He doesn't," Castiel pointed out. "Humans have crude ways of speaking to one another; they often rely on innuendos and metaphors to suggest what they want."

"What did he want with me?" Hannah began to relax and calm in the safety of their hotel room, and after a time, she moved to the window beside Castiel and gazed down at the view below. They were very high, and the confusion of cars and people looked like ants in the streets below.

"It is best not to dwell on it," Castiel pointed out. He was about to say more when there was an abrupt knock on the door. "Stay here," he instructed as he pulled an angel blade from his belt and approached the door.

Hannah watched uneasily as Castiel cautiously opened the door and peered out into the hallway. After a few seconds, he moved back, opening the door more and Hannah frowned at who was at the other end.

"Gabriel," Castiel murmured as he let the archangel inside. "We were-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Gabriel glanced at Hannah's direction and winked, "hey long time no see," he greeted before turning back to Castiel as the latter closed the door and followed him back into the room.

"How did you know we were looking?" Hannah questioned as Castiel and Gabriel joined her by the window.

"Like I can't sense a tracking spell," Gabriel replied, rolling his eyes as he lowered himself down onto one of the beds and made himself comfortable, propping up an elbow to face them. "What can I do you both for?"

Castiel and Hannah exchanged confused glances before Castiel turned to the subject at hand. "We need your help, brother," he replied. "Heaven is dying. You may be our only hope."

With that, Castiel sat down and began to explain the extent of their dilemma and the conversation stretched on into the day.


	8. Chapter 8

"So let me see if I understand this," Gabriel leaned against the hotel window while Castiel sat at the table and Hannah perched at the end of the bed. Castiel had just finished filling Gabriel in on the situation both in the apocalypse world and in this world. Gabriel squinted his eyes as if he hadn't quite absorbed everything. "We have two worlds. In one, my big bro decided to wipe out humans altogether, and in the other, it's all going dark upstairs because there are not enough angels?"

"Yes," Castiel explained. "Which is why we need your help, Gabriel. I know what Asmodeus did was-"

"Yeah hold up," Gabriel held up a hand. "Let's not even go there. You don't know what Asmodeus did to me so don't bother trying to get all Dr. Phil on me."

Castiel sighed. He was no stranger to torture. He couldn't forget the suffering he'd endured in the past, often at the hands of other angels, but he realized that Gabriel, and Hannah, had both been damaged by their torture and although Gabriel seemed to have returned to his usual mischevious self, the damage was still evident in his demeanor.

"I don't care to save the angels," Hannah spoke up suddenly after having remained silent up to this point. Castiel wasn't sure she had even been paying attention. She seemed to have been lost in her own thoughts, sitting there quietly on the bed while he and Gabriel exchanged words. But now, he and Gabriel turned their attention to her.

"Come again, sister?" Gabriel raised a brow.

"I don't see why we must help the angels," she repeated, glancing nervously at Castiel before turning back to Gabriel. "Perhaps they are getting what they deserve."

Castiel sighed and looked at Gabriel who just stared in disbelief. "She's from the other world, the one where Michael…" he trailed off as Gabriel got the picture. "Raphael, he hurt her. She has no love for her own kind, and after her treatment, I can't say I blame her."

Hannah just hung her head and stared at her hands in her lap. Gabriel sighed, "Okay, you got my attention," he said after a long pause. "What's the plan?"

"We must save the angels," Castiel replied, glancing at Hannah in sympathy as he did. "In this world. I agree they and I have not seen eye to eye in the past, Naomi in particular." Castiel shuddered as he remembered Naomi's torture of him. He caught Hannah's eye, and she recognized that look, she gave him a puzzled expression of her own.

"What did Naomi do to you?" she asked bluntly. "Why does saying her name cause you discomfort?"

"She and I had some… dealings," Castiel explained. "Unpleasant ones, I'm afraid. If she were not one of the last angels alive, I doubt we would be seeing eye to eye right now."

"She hurt you?" Hannah guessed. Castiel shrugged and nodded. Hannah looked at him in disbelief. "Then why would you want to help her?"

"Because the angels, despite my past with them, they're family," Castiel explained, giving Gabriel a pointed glance. Gabriel rolled his eyes in reply. "And right now, they need me. Need us. It's the right thing to do, Hannah."

Hannah shook her head, wincing as if in pain as she turned her focus back to her hands. Castiel looked at Gabriel. "It's the right thing to do, Gabriel," he repeated. "Please, brother."

Gabriel gave a long huff. "Fine," he said. "I've been running long enough, I guess. Look, I kinda sorta have a… bold plan. It's risky, but it might just work."

"What is it?" Castiel asked eagerly, noting that Hannah turned her attention to Gabriel.

"Remember when Metatron caused a fall?" Gabriel didn't need to remind Castiel of that, just the mention of it made Castiel bristle with anger towards Metatron.

"How could I forget?" he murmured. If this were the Hannah from this world, she would have remembered too; it was shortly after the fall that she and Castiel had met for the first time, and the friendship that grew between them was still fresh in Castiel's mind. But this Hannah knew none of it. Yet despite her more timid, cautious outlook, Castiel sensed that perhaps the Hannah he knew before might still exist, possibly buried under the years of trauma and hardship she'd endured.

"Well… what if we caused another fall?" Gabriel suggested then held up a hand when both angels looked at him incredulously. "I know the angels have to stay up there to keep the lights on and to keep all the souls locked up. But if you remember that when Metatron pulled his little trick, heaven was emptied of angels and nothing happened? It's because he sort of put it on lockdown. Froze the place down. We could do something similar."

"But the angels would die," Hannah replied. "The fall would kill them."

"Not necessarily," Gabriel replied. "I know a spell. An elixir I learned from my time hanging with the Norse gods. The ingredients are complicated but if Naomi and her posse drink the elixir, it forms a protective shield around them, and they'd survive the fall. The tricky part is what to do with them once they get down here."

"I'll get them somewhere safe," Castiel replied. "If the demons get wind of this, they'll be more than eager to pick off the last remaining angels in heaven. Sam, Dean, and I will be there to battle them and to protect the angels. Then we'll lock the angels up somewhere. Somewhere demon proof and angel proof, until we can replenish their numbers, they will stay locked away."

"Here comes the tricky part," Gabriel said. "Getting the ingredients for the two spells. The first you already know. To lock out heaven and cause the fall we need a cupid's arrow hand, an angel's grace, and the heart of a Nephilim."

"What about Jack?" Hannah turned to Castiel and Cas was surprised and alarmed she'd suggested it.

"You've met Jack?" he asked, raising a brow. Hannah nodded.

"Not personally, but Charlie told us about him. He is Lucifer's son."

"He is but he is locked in the apocalypse world and even if he weren't," Castiel shook his head, looking at Hannah, feeling disappointed that she's so casually suggested hurting him. "Jack is important to me; I will not kill him."

"But he is a Nephilim," Hannah pointed out. Castiel held up a hand, trying to swallow the rush of anger he suddenly felt. Hannah had no reason to trust him, Jack or anyone else, and it made sense to her, but he couldn't help but get defensive of Jack, the Nephilim he'd come to see as his own son.

Hannah sighed in defeat and looked down. "There is another Nephilim," she said, a hint of reluctance in her voice. "In my world. She worked at the camp where Raphael…" she trailed away, pursing her lips tightly, clearly having trouble forming words. "She and I were friends until she betrayed me."

"Still the tiny problem of getting her here," Gabriel pointed out. "I don't have enough mojo to open the rift, but there is someone who does."

Castiel sighed. "Lucifer," he groaned. Hannah looked at him with fear, her blue eyes widening with the mention of Lucifer. But Castiel sighed reluctantly. "Alright so we need the ingredients to open the rift, the ingredients to cause a fall of angels, and what about the elixir?"

"That's another tricky one," Gabriel explained. "For that one, we need a piece of the arc of the covenant, a mummified locust from the ten plagues, the blood of an empty vessel, and a werewolf heart."

"Very well," Castiel replied. He looked at Gabriel, grateful that the archangel was willing to help with this project. "We will embark on this scavenger hunt, and when we return, you will have created a safe house for the angels?"

"Yup," Gabriel said cheerfully. He turned serious for a moment, "you know there is no guarantee this will all work," he reminded him. "And if it doesn't we could be responsible for destroying heaven."

"I know," Castiel knew this all too well, and he had a sickening feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach concerning what he was going to do. "There is a lot that can go wrong. But we have to try."

"THere's one more little favor before I skip out," Gabriel replied quickly. Castiel nodded.

"Anything," he said sincerely. Gabriel was willing to risk everything, and Castiel was willing to do a favor for him, whatever it might be.

"There's this girl I know. No one too important," Castiel narrowed his eyes suspiciously, feeling uneasy about where this was going.

"No porn stars, Gabriel," he warned. Gabriel held up a hand.

"No nothing like that. Well… not completely. Her name is Annika Cawsand. She lives somewhere in Central California. I just want you to find her for me, when you do, you'll understand." Castiel felt uneasy about the cryptic, vague talk Gabriel was using, but he was willing to trust him.

"Sam is in California now," Castiel replied. "We can go meet up with him and find your friend. I will call him and Dean, and somehow, we will gather all the ingredients we need. It may take time."

"Yeah it will," Gabriel agreed. "Tell those muttonheads I'll check up on them. In the meantime, I have an angel fun house to build." And with that, Gabriel was gone, instantly vanished from the room.

Castiel turned his attention to Hannah. She met his eyes, her pretty blue eyes wide with fear and uncertainty. "We should head to California and meet Sam," he suggested softly. "I know you will be pleased to leave this city."

"You truly mean to do this?" she asked, studying him intently. She seemed confused, bewildered by the whole situation. "Just to help the angels? Even if they've hurt you?"

"I'd understand if you have reservations," Castiel replied cautiously. "And I know this is going to cause you discomfort. I regret asking this of you, but if we go to the apocalypse world, I will need your help finding this Nephilim. Will you help me?"

"I don't know you," Hannah replied before getting to her feet. Castiel did the same and moved to stand in front of her, focusing his attention on her, locking his eyes with hers, if briefly before she shuttered a little and looked away, squeezing her eyes shut in a wince. "But the Castiel I knew was kind, and I got him killed."

"You mustn't blame yourself for that," Castiel insisted, frowning at the way she shook slightly, he worried she was on the verge of another breakdown. He paused, waiting for her to compose herself. "Take deep breaths," he encouraged. She did so, breathing in and out, and eventually calming, though the wince stayed in her eyes as she opened them to look at him.

"I still don't want to help the angels," she admitted. "I can't forgive them as easily as you can. But… for him- you… I'll help you, Castiel."

"I'm grateful," he told her sincerely. "For your bravery. Come," he offered her his hand. At first, she hesitated, but remembering the chaos of humans in the hotel, she took it, gripping tight as they headed for the next part of their adventure.


	9. Chapter 9

That evening saw Sam and Eileen standing in front of a deserted train station in Paso Robles, California.

"What are we supposed to be looking for?" Eileen wanted to know as the chilly wind ruffled the sleeves on her jacket. Sam shrugged. He felt a little conflicted about taking on a case while they had a more significant mission they should be focusing on, but he just couldn't let the feeling go that something in his past was coming back to haunt him.

"Cas should be here any minute," he explained. "And Percy said there might be a vampire nest nearby." Sam couldn't shake the uneasiness he felt. He knew Eileen was in the dark about what was going on with the vampires and he knew she'd have to learn about all the terrible things he'd done when he had no soul. He felt embarrassed and ashamed. This wasn't the Eileen he'd known from this world, this was a hardened warrior who'd come here to help save their world from Michael's impending incursion, and was now being dragged into Sam's personal problems.

What's worse is that Dean wasn't picking up his phone. Sam had repeatedly tried to call his brother to no avail. Dean was on the other side of the country, and although this transporter would get them back there quickly, he still felt nervous about being this far away if Dean was in trouble. Castiel had called ahead to explain to him what he and Gabriel were planning, and neither of them had been able to get ahold of Dean.

At that moment, a pair of headlights caught Sam's attention as a familiar car pulled up. Castiel's gold sedan swiftly pulled up in front of them, and the two angels quickly got out.

"Why did you want to meet here, Sam?" Castiel questioned as he and Hannah approached them. Hannah smiled at Eileen, happy to see a familiar sight and the two exchanged a few words in sign language which were difficult to make out in the dim light of the overhead street lamp above them.

"It has something to do with me," Sam explained to Castiel. "We ran into a diner full of hunters who claimed they had a vampire problem here."

Castiel sighed. "I understand you want to work a case, Sam but do you think vampires are our priority now?" Sam pursed his lips. Maybe he was a little preoccupied with the vampires.

"They said it had something to do with a hunt Samuel Campbell and I did seven years ago," Sam explained. "When I was… you know… soulless."

Castiel eyed him, the blue in his eyes darkened in the light of the street lamp. "Have you gotten ahold of Dean yet?" he questioned as Sam glanced to Eileen and Hannah as the two women gazed around the deserted train station, no doubt staying alert of their surroundings.

"He isn't answering his phone," Sam said nervously. "We found another bunker here in California; if we can get back there, I can use my laptop to track the impala."

"I tried calling Jo," Eileen said, anxiously looking at Hannah as she did. "She isn't answering either. I'm getting worried, Sam."

Sam shared her concern. "We'll get to them," he assured her.

"I called Charlie to inform her of Gabriel's plan," Castiel replied. "She said she was traveling with a hunter she teamed up with, she didn't say who, but she is going to head to Maine and look for Dean. We also have to find a woman named Annika."

"Annika?" Sam repeated, raising a brow. "Why?"

"She is someone Gabriel asked us to locate," Castiel explained. "His reasoning was vague, but-"

Castiel was cut off abruptly. "Castiel," Hannah said aloud, and Sam followed her gaze to see figures suddenly gathering just outside the reach of the light from the street lamp. Sam counted at least a dozen and more were arriving. Vampires.

"So good of you to come, Sam Winchester," Sam bristled at the sound of his name as he and Castiel turned to face the vampires. The leader, the one who spoke, stood stoically in the dark, his leather jacket glistening in the moonlight.

"What are you doing to this town?" Castiel demanded. "And what business do you have with Sam?"

"He should know," Leather Jacket growled with a sneer. Sam frowned when he caught Eileen's eye as Hannah pulled out an angel blade. "I notice you can't face me without bringing your angel friends."

"Look I'm sorry, but I don't remember you," Sam replied, pulling out a long machete that had been tucked under his coat, as Eileen did the same. "There's a part of my life I don't remember."

"Save me the sad, soulless Sam story," Leather Jacket sneered. "You killed my entire nest. Newly turned vampires who hadn't even had their first meal yet. They were innocent, even by your narrow hunter definition. And what's worse, you could have saved them, isn't that right, Sam?"

Sam winced at the guilt rising inside of him. Eileen narrowed her eyes at him, and he could tell she was surprised. Her eyes pleaded silently to tell her if it was all true. Sam could only nod.

"We don't have time for this," Castiel pointed out, raising his voice so the vampires can be heard. "Whatever Sam is guilty of, you know you can't defeat two angels."

Leather Jacket frowned and glanced at the other members of his posse. The look on his face told Sam that he clearly wasn't counting on there being angels present. Sam held his blade.

"Leave this town alone," he demanded. "Whatever you have going here, there is a community of hunters here, and you will be stopped."

"Why don't we cut to the chase," Leather Jacket replied. "We know all about the problem with the angels. Or lack thereof. Every monster on the planet is aware of it and let's just say we're taking full advantage. Think of it, Sam. No more heaven. Just a planet where monsters roam free."

Sam pursed his lips and glanced at Castiel who remained his calm, unintimidated self. The angel stepped forward. "We aren't defeated yet," he said. "Perhaps if we kill you there will be far fewer vampires for humans to worry about after we're gone."

Leather Jacket reacted violently to that. He and his team of vampires moved in closer, fangs bared. "Let's get this party started," he said with a snide smirk. "Oh and let's even the odds a little."

Before Sam could even blink, the vampire had produced what looked like some kind of rubber balloon full of liquid and heaved it towards them. It hit Hannah hard in the side and instantly exploded into a fray of fluid which splattered thickly all over the angel.

At first, nothing seemed to happen. Hannah blinked, glancing at her now wet and dripping grey blazer and jeans. But as the thick liquid soaked through her clothes, it began to sizzle, the clothes flaking away and when the liquid made it to her skin, the angel suddenly let out the most agonized scream Sam had ever heard and collapsed hard to the concrete under her.

"Hannah!" Eileen dove for the angel and the vampires pounced. Sam moved in quick to swipe a blow at the first approaching vampire before he had the chance to get to Eileen. Swiftly, his blade impacted the vampire in the neck and cut through the flesh; its head was rolling across the concrete moments later.

"What did you do to her?" Castiel demanded as Hannah curled in on herself, burying her face in her knees, shaking violently as she whimpered and gasped in pain. Eileen knelt beside her, trying in vain to comfort her.

"Oh just a little concoction I whipped up," Leather Jacket replied as Sam dove into more incoming vampires with his machete, lopping off heads while he kept an eye on the two women huddled on the floor. Castiel looked incensed. Leather Jacket shrugged. "Angel grenade," he explained. "Secret ingredients. I have one for you too." He pulled out another black angel balloon and launched it at Castiel who quickly ducked then held up a hand and used his white light to blast Leather Jacket and four of the vampires behind him high up in the air, watching as they fell back to the ground with a sickening thud.

"Cas look out!" Sam exclaimed as he whirled to take out a few more vampires. The angel backflipped a vampire who jumped him from behind and slammed it to the ground, smiting it to death. Then Castiel dove headlong into the fray, becoming a smiting, blasting fury, taking out vampire after vampire in the blink of an eye. Sam couldn't help but be impressed.

Sam took out one last vampire before hurrying to Eileen and Hannah, while Castiel finished off the last of the retreating vampires. "Let's get her into the car," he suggested. Hannah's grey blazer, navy shirt, and blouse underneath had all been burned away, leaving her torso exposed and Sam could see her skin bubbling and flaking in what looked like second and third-degree burns. The brilliant blue angel grace slowly oozed out of her just as blood did. It looked bad. And the way Hannah shook and trembled hinted at the pain she was in.

"Be careful," Eileen warned, as she draped her jacket over Hannah while Sam gently knelt to scoop Hannah into his arms before getting to his feet. "She doesn't really like to be touched by people she doesn't know."

"I understand," Sam said before turning to Castiel as he carried Hannah in his arms. "Come on let's get her back to the bunker." Castiel nodded, concern written all over his grim face as he hurried to his car, his gaze lingering over Hannah's quivering form in Sam's arms. Sam could see a flash of anger in Castiel's blue eyes, and it made him want to curl into a ball. These vampires were his problem, and he had managed to drag those around him into it.

The ride back to the bunker took far too long. After Sam had helped Hannah into the back seat, Castiel had driven furiously through town, Hannah's cries of pain from the back seat spurring him on. He said nothing, his jaw clenched in anger as he focused on the road ahead. Sam thought it was a wonder that they somehow made it all the way to the bunker without being pulled over by cops.

They got Hannah into the bunker and lay her down on the wooden table. As Sam turned on the lights and quickly gathered his and Eileen's duffel bags to search for necessary supplies, including a medical kit, Castiel was there instantly, leaning over her, examining the wound carefully.

"Can you heal her?" Eileen asked as she and Sam watched the angel work. She glanced mournfully at Sam. "Her and I… and Jo and Charlie, we're practically sisters."

"I know how that feels," Sam said, gazing down into her eyes. "Cas is going to do everything he can."

As Sam and Eileen looked on, Castiel leaned over Hannah's face; the angel women gazed up at him, her eyes wide with pain as her skin glistened with sweat and tears of agony slid out of the corner of her eyes.

"Hannah," he said slowly, searching for any hint of coherence. She blinked at the sound of her name. "I have to look at your wound; you must try your best to bear it." Hannah squeezed her eyes shut. She looked terrified but slowly nodded, indicating that some kind of repertoire, though precarious, seemed to exist between the two angels.

With her consent, Castiel turned his attention to the burn. He pulled aside the jacket Eileen gave her and the fabric of her clothes, exposing her entire torso to examine the burn closely. Sam winced at the sight. The skin was charred and burned over a large surface of her body, covering her left side and abdomen. Her labored, pain hitched breathing made it appear to glisten with bright red blood as it bubbled and blistered. If Hannah had been human, Sam doubted there would be much chance for survival. As it was, he could see the bright blue grace, her true lifeblood, slowly snaking out of her body like blue smoke.

Castiel appeared deeply emotionally affected by the sight as he concentrated. Sam could see it etched on his face as he slowly brushed a finger against the damaged skin, emitting the white light of angelic healing as he roamed over her skin.

Hannah reacted to the touch with a cry, flinching hard. Sam couldn't tell if it was pure pain or if she was also having a reaction to Castiel's touch, gentle though it was. She gasped out, squeezing here eyes shut. Eileen moved to her side, careful to stay out of Castiel's way as she took the angel woman's hand. Sam watched the scene with silent contemplation.

"It was an enhanced type of holy oil," Castiel explained, glancing briefly up at Sam before returning to his task. "Mixed with the tainted essence of myrrh. Painful and excruciating to angels. I don't know how vampires got ahold of this substance."

"How bad is it, Cas?" Sam wanted to know. Castiel glanced in his direction pointedly.

"She will survive," he said finally. "I can heal her enough to allow her grace to recover. After that, she can heal herself."

As Castiel's fingers roamed the surface of Hannah's skin, the burn slowly began to fade. Hannah let out a quick breath of relief as she opened her eyes to look at him.

"It doesn't hurt so much anymore," she said softly, her voice barely a whisper. She moved to tough the top of Castiel's hand as he took it away from her body. Eileen arched a brow in surprise as she watched the guester.

"Rest," Castiel insisted softly before touching her forehead with his finger, causing her to pass out, her head quickly dropping to the side.

Eileen drapped the jacket back over the sleeping angel, and with Hannah's treatment out of the way, the two of them turned their attention to Sam who tensed.

"I'm sorry," he offered to both of them, though he knew it didn't make up for what happened. "This was my fault. I just couldn't ignore it. I know we have a lot on our plate, but I'm still a hunter, and I can't just let an entire town be threatened by those vampires."

"What he said about you earlier, about you killing innocent people," Eileen questioned.

"It's a part of my past that I didn't want to revisit," Sam replied. "I did some bad things."

"It's not important right now," Castiel said slowly. "The vampires are taken care of for now, but what's more important is that we wasted time with this. Time we don't have, Sam. The plan to save the angels, it requires all of us."

"Right," Sam held up his hands. "You're right Cas. I'm sorry about Hannah."

"She's been through enough pain," Castiel bristled at the mention of the angel woman sleeping behind them. "We have to focus. Our first task is checking on Dean. Track the location of the impala and let Charlie know. While you do that, I am going to search for this Annika, and we will need a plan to capture Lucifer."

Sam swallowed hard. He knew this plan of theirs required archangel grace and a trip to the other world, and he knew Gabriel wasn't going to be enough. But the idea of going up against Lucifer again terrified him. He looked down at the floor, trying to compose himself. He finally nodded and was about to reach for his lap top when there was the familiar flapping of wings. Sam whirled to see a young girl suddenly appear up on the landing above them.

The girl looked like she couldn't have been more than 16, her blonde strawberry hair flowed in waves to her waist as she gazed down at them with icy blue eyes, her white dress flowing.

"Who are you?" Sam demanded, reaching for his angel blade. "How'd you get in here?"

"I sensed you were searching for me," she said softly. "So I came. My name is Annika, and I am a Nephilim."


	10. Chapter 10

**Note** : This story has been on Hiatus for nearly a year and a half. A lot has happened on the show since then. At the time I started writing this, little was known about the apocalypse world, so consider this Canon Divergent or AU.

Dean and Jo spent the next day exploring the mansion. With the arrival of dawn, the wolves had moved on.

As he moved slowly from room to room, he glanced ahead as Jo, who handled the rock salt rifle, entered first. They'd come across the many spirits that haunted the house, but so far none of them seemed interested in harming them. The young girls, all dressed in 17th-century puritan bonnets and dresses appeared at irregular intervals. Sometimes in a room, they entered, sometimes in the hallway, but always watching, silently, their eyes pleading.

"Do you think they are trying to tell us something?" Jo asked after she shot at the last little girl, causing her to disappear. "Should we salt and burn their bones?"

"Probably," Dean replied as he inched along. "But I wouldn't even begin to imagine where they might all be buried, and we don't exactly have time to track them down. I don't think this place has been touch, except by hunters, in centuries." It went against every fiber of Dean's being to leave a haunted house alone like this, but they had a mission to focus on right now, and he didn't want to face another night here surrounded by werewolves.

Just when he was about to give up on the weapons, they moved to the last unexplored room of the house, and their luck paid off. It was crammed full of guns, ammo, grenades, armor, and various other armaments.

"Jackpot," Dean commented, a grin coming over his face as he dropped his duffel bag and eagerly started loading the weapons in. "If we hurry, we might be able to get out of here on time."

"And then what?" Jo asked as she knelt to fill her bag. She set the rock salt rifle down, and just as she did so, a spirit was suddenly standing in front of her. A young girl of about 12 years old wearing a bonnet and a plain green dress: Dean tensed and moved to grab his pistol, but Jo held up a hand.

"Wait," she said. "I think she's trying to say something." Dean squinted at her in disbelief but watched as the spirit floated past them both and came to stand by the window. She glanced at them both. Exchanging glances, they both stood up and followed her. As Dean peering into the yard below them, he sighed.

What greeted him from this vantage were a row of crosses marking graves and a row of half-decayed stone grave slabs.

"She wants us to put them to rest," Dean said somberly. He took in a breath. That would be a lot of work, and they'd miss their opportunity to get back to the impala before the dark. But he felt the sympathy for the girls. He realized that their deaths, so many centuries ago now, were wrongful and that they'd spent all this time forever stuck in limbo.

"Come on, we have work to do," Dean told Jo who nodded. They gathered the weapons then headed outside armed with shovels, oil, and a lighter.

The work was grueling, he and Jo each worked on their own grave, he starting on one end of the row of stone, Jo starting on the other. Hours later, as they both worked together on the last one, pulling the coffin open to reveal a small skeleton, and quickly igniting it with flames, Dean felt satisfied. He felt guilty about his earlier thoughts of wanting to leave this place behind. He'd made sure to glance at every name on each and noted their years of birth and death. None of the girls were older than 14 and their instructor, resting in the middle grave, was in her twenties.

"Those assholes who murdered these girls probably lived out their days in comfort," Jo commented bitterly, some hours later as the two of them watched the last grave burn.

"Yeah whether they were witches or not is beside the point," Dean couldn't believe he was saying this. He used to hate witches. Still did to a point. But Rowena and others he'd met had given him probable doubt over what he once believed. Always lumping witches into the category of things to hunt, he'd recently realized that many of them only wanted to practice their beliefs in peace and weren't any harm to anyone.

"These girls probably weren't even witches," Jo commented. "They were probably just women who showed some hint of independent thought. In the 17th century, that was enough for a bunch of misogynistic bastards to want them dead."

"Touche," Dean agreed as they watched the flames dancing about in the grave. He glanced at Jo as the glow of the fire reflected off her face. He thought he saw some semblance of emotion glistening in her eyes, but it was all too fleeting as she turned to him.

"What now?" she asked. "Do we spend another night here?"

"I guess," he said as he glanced up at the tree-shrouded sky above. "We-" he was interrupted as a long howl pierced the stillness of the early evening sky. The sun had barely begun to make its descent, and it sounded like they were about to have company early.

"Here they come," he said, digging through his duffel bag and throwing her a rifle and grabbing one for himself. He tossed her a pack of silver bullets and quickly started loading his own weapon. He'd just about finished when he suddenly heard shots ringing out followed by a few yipes.

"What…" Jo conveyed surprise as they both whirled towards the sound. Dean just about doubled over as Charlie and Claire emerged from the forest, each holding rifles and beaming proudly as they gazed at the dumbfounded expressions they encountered.

"Hey bitches," Charlie greeted cheerfully. "Ready to peace out of here?"

"Hell yeah," Dean agreed eagerly. "How the hell did you even find us?"

"Sam called us after he tried to get ahold of you," Charlie explained. "We managed to track your badass car. We'd better hurry those mutts will be bringing friends."

Dean felt puzzled as he glanced over at Claire. "Wait, Claire, how are you here?" he asked. The blonde shrugged.

"Calm down," she muttered. "Before you go running off to tell Jody, she knows I'm gone. Told her I needed some me time." Dean noticed that Claire held a mason jar in one hand, her rifle in the other.

"What's that?" he asked.

"We'll explain everything," Charlie interrupted urgently. "Now, let's haul ass."

Dean wasn't about to argue. With four of them, they stood a chance against the werewolves. But it was still a fight. They hurried through the forest and were ambushed halfway. The fighting was fierce, but they managed to get away, and finally, the road and the impala came into view. Illuminated under the light of a street lamp, the impala and Charlie's small red car were both welcomed sights.

Safe! They were finally safe. Dean hurried to his car, and as Jo got into the passenger seat, they sped off, Charlie and Claire following suit in their own vehicle.

Later that evening, Dean's stomach growled in anticipation as the server placed a massive burger in front of him. Beside him, Jo's burger was almost as big. After not having eaten in nearly two days, they were both famished. Across from them, Charlie and Claire ate their meals.

"So let me get this straight," Dean asked, his voice muffled as he shoveled fries into his mouth at lightning speed. "Gabriel wants us to lock out heaven and put all the angels in some kind of safe house?"

"That's the gist of it," Charlie explained. "And to do everything, we need a lot of ingredients. Hence the werewolf heart."

Dean glanced across at Claire, who ate her fries as she listened to everything. "And what does Claire here have to do with any of this?"

Charlie and Claire exchanged expressions, and Claire rolled her eyes. "We sort of met up at the bunker," Charlie explained. "She said she knew you and came by to clear her head. She said she was a hunter, so I let her tag along."

"Hunter my ass," Dean growled, thinking about how her presence might pose a problem. He didn't like the idea of Claire being in the kind of danger they no doubt would encounter with all of this.

"I'm a big girl, Dean," Claire added. "I want to help out. I helped your ass, didn't I? Which makes twice that I saved your ass by the way."

Of course, how could Dean forget Claire rescuing him and Sam from the lizard jungle planet? He had to admit to himself that Claire had the potential to be an excellent hunter. She was brave and resourceful. But she was also young, inexperienced, and troubled. And an amateur was a liability.

"Right," Dean wasn't convinced. He glanced at Charlie. "Can we talk for a moment? Alone?"

"Sure," Charlie got up from her seat, and Dean followed her outside the cafe, leaving Claire and Jo behind to finish their meal. When they found themselves standing in front of the impala as it sat parked in the parking lot, Dean turned to Charlie.

"Look, I don't know if this is a good idea," he began. "Claire is young. And she's troubled. We left her with a friend of ours who has been looking out for her."

Charlie looked Dean over, pursing her lips a little in reflective contemplation. "In my world, we take all the help we can get," she explained. "I've been fighting a war against angels since I was barely her age and if I can do it, so can she. You grow up quick where I'm from."

"You mean like Jo?" Dean said, accusingly. "She's not the Jo I knew. And you aren't the Charlie I knew. The Charlie I knew would never endanger a kid-"

"Alright, hold it right there," Charlie held up a hand, cutting Dean off. "First off, I don't know how many times we have to go over this, but we aren't from your world. We do things a little different where I am from. I'm the leader of these women, they follow me, and if Claire wants to help out, she can. She's not a child, and she's capable of making her own decisions. Got it?"

"I-" Dean tried to argue. But Charlie wasn't having it.

" _Got_ it?" she repeated firmly, emphasizing her point. Dean was forced to agree. "Good. You had better go get some rest; we have a long drive ahead of us."

"Drive?" Dean was puzzled.

"Yeah, we are meeting Eileen and Hannah at your Kansas bunker to discuss Gabriel's scavenger hunt." Charlie handed him a set of keys and pointed across the street to a motel. "I got you a room, go ahead and make yourself at home."

"But my burger," Dean complained. "And uh I don't know how it is in your world, but here we are still expected to pay the bill."

"I got it," Charlie explained, pulling out her wallet and sifting through the cards. "And I'll have someone bring you a snack. For now, my girls and I need to have a meeting. Alone. See you in the morning."

The last statement was abrupt and final; Charlie made it clear it wasn't opened for debate. Dean was left dumbfounded as she turned and strode back into the restaurant. Dean frowned. What had just happened? He felt as though the big kid's clubhouse had just rejected him. He wasn't used to this at all. Not being in charge. He was always in charge. It didn't matter who he was in charge of, whether it was Sam or Cas, _he_ called the shots. His Charlie…

Dean sighed at that last thought. He had to stop doing that. He couldn't see past the women he once knew. The brash, independent, reckless young girl from the Road House and the brave, nerdy, yet somewhat timid redhead he'd claimed as his kid sister.

Despite his impulse to crash their meeting anyway and reclaim his half-eaten burger, Dean obediently returned to the room Charlie had gotten him and lay down on the bed. He thought back to the spirits he and Jo had released. He was glad that even with the weight of war and their mission looming over them all, they were able to take the time to put those girls to rest.

He had just begun to doze off when he heard a knock on the door. Rolling to his feet, he opened it, letting Jo inside. He glanced at the styrofoam to go box and the brown paper bag in her hands as she came in and he locked the door behind her.

"Thought you might be in here stewing after being ejected from the big girl's table," she said as she put her cargo on the table and strode over to the first of the twin beds, sitting down. "Don't take it personally, Charlie and I are used to making our plans and filling everyone in later. Eileen and Hannah are usually part of the huddle…" she trailed away as she pulled off her boots and tossed them on the floor.

"Yeah well I still don't like the idea of Claire being here," Dean began as he stood in front of her. "Jody is going to kick my ass, and Cas is going to be pissed."

"Cas?" Jo raised a brow. "What does he have to do with it?"

"He's her father," Dean explained. "Well, you know. His vessel, Jimmy Novak. It might be a bit of a shocker for him."

Jo frowned realization dawning on her. "Oh," she commented. "She didn't bother to disclose that little detail to Charlie."

Dean huffed and watched her for a moment before letting his gaze roam over to the table. "What's this?"

"Your burger," Jo replied, getting to her feet and waltzing over to open the box. Dean grinned when he found his half-eaten burger and bed of fries inside. When Jo moved onto the paper bag and pulled out a large bottle of whiskey, he raised a brow.

"I don't remember that being part of the special," he commented as she opened the bottle.

"Yeah, well, do you know how long its been since I've had a nice shot?" Jo informed him. "In my world, alcohol is much more valuable as an antiseptic."

Jo pulled the lid off and before Dean could say anything else, knocked her head back and took a long swig straight from the bottle. A few gulps and a satisfied exhale later, and Jo passed the bottle to Dean.

"I'd say we've earned a little reward," Dean said with a smirk as he took a long drink of the bottle before passing it back to her.

The night evolved from there. Dean should have seen it coming. But as the bottle passed back and forth, and the warmth of tipsy intoxication clouded his mind, he wasn't sure who made the first move, or whether they did in unison but somewhere between the fourth or fifth shot, the bottle was on the table, and she was in his arms, their lips locked in sultry passion as they both stripped off articles of clothing with frantic urgency.

The heat intensified as he found himself laying in bed with Jo on top of him, sensually moving her hips against his, her caresses and kisses up and down his body and the moisture glistening on both of their bodies driving him into a frenzy of passion.

The passionate moans and gasps intensified as he rolled onto her, grinding into her with lustful fervor, her hands raking down his bare back as he kissed her neck. She arched her neck into his kisses, burying her head into the pillow, her heart pounding against him.

Many pleasurable moments later, Dean lay in bed with Jo tucked into his arms, her head laying against his shoulders as they both listened to each other's pounding hearts.

"Now those are some skills you don't just inherit," Dean murmured as he soothingly rubbed a hand on her bare back.

"Well I learned a few things," she said with a grin.

"And I'm pretty sure I told you I wasn't going to be so easy," Dean teased. "Do I look like a quick piece of meat to you?"

"Shut up," she responded. "Don't pretend like my alluringly sexy advances didn't seduce you; you lose strumpet."

Dean smirked as he held her, letting her drift off to sleep in his arms before doing so himself.


	11. Chapter 11

Annika spoke with a slight Italian accent as she sat at the table in the main room of the bunker, Castiel, Hannah, and Eileen gathered around her. Eileen handed her a glass of water while the two angels sat across the table, observing her.

"Gabriel asked me to look for you," Castiel began slowly as Hannah silently studied the girl. Castiel was glad to see that Hannah had recovered from her encounter with the vampires, she was dressed in a navy blue blazer and slacks, a light gray blouse, and a light grey trenchcoat. In some ways, her attire closely resembled the clothes that this world's Hannah had worn. She looked much less like a war-torn refugee and more like an angel. "I wasn't sure why at first but if you are a Nephilim… there can only be one explanation for that."

"Gabriel is my father," Annika confirmed. "My mother was a woman from Monte Carlo."

As that moment, Sam came back into the room, holding his cell phone. "Charlie met up with Dean and Jo," he announced. "They got the werewolf heart. They are going to head to Boston where they think they found a lead for the arc of the covenant."

"Good," Castiel replied. The ingredients were slowly being collected, but as he looked at the girl, the thought of their next component crossed his mind just as Hannah blurted it out.

"We need a Nephilim heart," she said bluntly as she leaned forward in her chair, fixing Annika with a resolute gaze across the table. "To construct the spell to lock down heaven and expel the angels."

Annika immediately tensed in her seat, and Sam sighed. "No," he warned, holding up a palm in both angel's direction. "Don't even think about it, any of you."

"It would save us from having to go to the apocalypse world," Hannah pointed out incredulously as she looked at Sam. "And we would not have to involve Lucifer in this plan."

Castiel sighed. There was no hesitation in Hannah's voice. She was perfectly willing to kill this girl to serve their purposes, especially if it meant avoiding having to face her world and horrors that awaited her there. Castiel couldn't blame her for wanting to avoid it at all costs. He still didn't know the details of the trauma she had endured there, but he'd already seen how those experiences had reduced her to the fearful, traumatized, shell shocked being she was now and he'd do anything to spare her from having to face it again — almost anything.

"I didn't have to come here," Annika pointed out. "I've lived here for the past six years of my life. I've learned how to survive on my own, avoiding people. I only came because I sensed you were looking for me and because I want to see my father."

Castiel frowned at learning the girl's age. She was six years old. Only a few years older than Jack. She was a child. He thought of Jack and how eager he was to see the Nephilim again, and that still would require a trip to the apocalypse world.

"It's okay Annika," Eileen spoke up as she sat beside the girl. She put a hand on the blonde's shoulder, causing the girl to look at her. Castiel had come to realize that this was a tactic Eileen used not only to comfort people and diffuse them, but also to prompt them to face her so she could read their lips.

"Maybe you could tell us if you remember when last you saw your father?" the brunette woman's tone was calm and the girl visibly relaxed, only slightly, though she kept glancing wearily at Hannah.

"My mother died when I was born," Annika explained. "My father took me here and told me to hide in the forest. He warned me to avoid human contact. The only humans I encountered were hikers and campers. I hid high up in the trees; I would silently observe them. They never knew I was there. I would listen to them talk. They'd talk about their lives. Sometimes I would imagine myself with them, participating in their lives."

The look of longing in Annika's eyes as she recounted her life made Castiel miss Jack even more. Gabriel had wanted to protect her. He thought that by isolating her from humans, she'd be safe, perhaps from both Humans and Angels. But in doing so, he'd prevented her from being able to experience relationships and friendships, the sort of things that Jack had been able to have from the very beginning.

"My father said he would come back for me, but he never did," Annika continued. "I've been waiting and hoping." She glanced at Castiel. "I sensed that you were looking for me. I don't know how, but I did. It was as if I could feel it. So I decided to come."

"Your father is alive," Castiel confirmed. "But he has been… indisposed for the past few years." Castiel thought about Gabriel. They'd all thought he was dead and to find out that he had been held captive by Asmodeus all this time, quite possibly, since Annika's birth. "Hannah and I just met up with him, and we are working on a plan so if you stay with us, I'm certain you will meet him again."

"However, we require a Nephilim heart," Hannah stated again more firmly as she turned towards Castiel. "And this is the easiest way to obtain it. You were unwilling to kill your Jack, Castiel, so this is an acceptable solution."

"No, Hannah," Castiel replied, turning to face her. He wasn't sure how he'd be able to make her understand. To an angel, a Nephilim was an abomination, and perhaps if Castiel was the same angel that he was when he first met the Winchesters, he'd probably have no qualms about killing the girl either. But now… after all, he'd learned in the world, after he'd learned to value other people's lives, much more than he valued his own life, he could never stand for that solution. "I'm sorry, but we can't let you kill her either. Gabriel told us to find her because he trusted us to keep her safe."

"Or perhaps because he knew we needed her," Hannah argued, narrowing her eyes in defiance as she crossed her arms across her chest. "I thought you would understand, Castiel. You claim to want to help your people, yet you balk at such an obvious solution."

"Look the girl lives," Sam put in as he stood there in front of the table, his voice firm and unwavering. "We need to stick with our original plan. Go to the Apocalypse world and get the Nephilim you are acquainted with."

"Perhaps when we get there you will feel the need to spare her life as well," Hannah accused as she got to her feet, angrily shoving her chair away. Castiel quickly got to his feet as well, on alert as Hannah narrowed in on Annika.

"You are an abomination," Hannah declared as she reached into her pocket and retrieved her angel blade.

Annika stood up defensively, her eyes began to glow menacingly, and Castiel could sense the sudden tension in the room as Hannah and Annika sized one another up.

"Hannah," Castiel urged as he moved to stand in between the two women, anxiously glancing between them as Sam and Eileen both readied for a possible fight. "Please, Hannah. I know you don't want to go back there, but there are things about this world you don't understand. One of them is that under no circumstances is it ever okay to kill an innocent."

"You use that word so gingerly in this world," Hannah pointed out. "All the Humans who were killed by angels in my world, they were innocent. But yet they were slaughtered anyway, and their protection has brought me nothing but misery and suffering. If I had learned to do as I was told instead of making the mistake of letting myself feel compassion, then perhaps Raphael would have valued me more."

"I'm sorry," Castiel offered sincerely. To that, Hannah only scoffed, turned on her heels and stormed away down the hall. Castiel watched her go. He hated the situation he found himself in. He didn't want to be the one to have to force Hannah to return to her world, to put her in the kind of danger she had managed to escape from.

"She's been through a lot," Eileen offered in Hannah's defense. "I know how she feels about not wanting to go into that world again. I can't say it's my first choice, either."

"I don't understand what any of this is about," Annika pointed out as she relaxed her stance. "Why do you need my heart?"

"It's for a spell," Castiel explained. He turned to the girl and began to explain the details of their situation. About how Hannah and Eileen were from an alternate world, how the angels were going extinct, and he and Gabriel had devised a plan to try to save them.

"We need the heart to close the gates of heaven and expel the angels," Castiel explained. "Our plan is to take them to a secure location until we can find out how to repopulate them."

"There are two Nephilim in this other world," Sam added. "Jack and another one that Hannah knows."

"Hannah's never talked much about that Nephilim," Eileen explained, "only that she was responsible for betraying Hannah to Raphael. Which is why she's a good candidate for the heart donor… it doesn't sound like she has much of one anyway."

"I'll help," Annika agreed. "If you keep her away from me." Castiel nodded. So they would go with their original plan, he just needed to try to reach Hannah somehow.


	12. Chapter 12

"This is a dumb ass idea," Dean commented as he drove the impala along the rugged coastal New England highway. The Atlantic ocean gleamed and sparkled in the sun, and if his mind wasn't a turbulent tide of worries, he might have taken the time to admire it.

"Yeah well it's what we are doing," Charlie commented from the back seat. Dean glanced at his rearview mirror as Charlie and Claire both sat in the back, gazing out of their windows. In the passenger seat, Jo was looking over a brochure she'd managed to find regarding their next stop.

"I thought we were going to Kansas to meet up with Sammy," Dean protested. He thought of his brother. But more than that, he thought about what he and Jo did last night. His mind kept dwelling on it. Why did he feel so guilty? That wasn't his typical attitude when it came to sex. But this was different. This was Jo, and not his Jo either.

"I've never been on a heist before," Claire spoke up, and Dean groaned. "Do you really think these mob guys have what we're looking for?"

"Alright, hold it right there," Dean corrected. "We aren't going on a damned heist. You are going to chill out in the hotel and watch Pokemon while Charlie, Jo, and I check out this thing out. For all we know, it's a false alarm I mean the arc of the covenant? Really? If Indiana Jones didn't have any luck, what makes you think we will?"

Dean ignored Charlie glaring daggers in his direction. He wasn't letting this go, he had no idea what sort of situation they were dealing with, and he wasn't going to be responsible for anything happening to Claire. Sure, she was technically an adult- she was around the same age Sam was when he dragged him out of Stanford- but he still couldn't get past the idea that she still felt like a child to him.

"Well, maybe Indie just didn't know where to look," Jo spoke up from the passenger seat. "Besides, Gabriel should be able to determine if it's the real deal once we get it to him."

"Yeah and if it's not, we will have pissed off some mob guys for no reason," Dean pointed out as he drove. They were already entering Boston by now, and the congested freeway heading into downtown forced Dean to focus on driving as towering skyscrapers surrounded them and they were enveloped by brick and concrete.

"I'll take mob guys over angels any day," Jo pointed out. "At least mob guys are easy to kill."

Dean stayed quiet. As they navigated the congested streets, droves of people walked around them on sidewalks donned in long sleeves and clutching their Starbucks cups; Dean was reminded how much he hated big cities. The cluster of humanity, the urban jungle around them, having to share the road with all these mindless, clueless apes who had no idea how many times Dean had saved all of their asses, it was all enough to make Dean more irritated than he already was.

"Our hotel is here in Beacon Hill," Charlie instructed as Dean struggled to maneuver the impala through the maze of one-way streets and narrow alleys. When they finally made it to the parking structure of their hotel, Dean turned the impala off and turned to glance at Charlie.

"How did you manage to score some fancy-ass hotel?" he asked the redhead. Charlie only shrugged and pulled out a credit card.

"Before the apocalypse, I was a pretty badass techno-geek, I made good money," she explained. "Since money doesn't really mean much in my world these days, I was pleasantly surprised to find my plastic works in this world. I got us a two-room suite."

Dean was impressed with Charlie's resourcefulness. He could see why she'd been put in charge of this resistance. She always seemed to keep a calm, level head and always seemed to be on top of her game. As tough as Jo was, she seemed to fall in line where Charlie led naturally.

Dean was used to being the leader and making the decisions. Sam and Castiel followed him, even when they didn't want to. But in the apocalypse world? Charlie did what Dean did and not only that, she was more than a match. After all, Dean had never led his brothers through a world devastated by an apocalypse. He'd managed to prevent them, but if one proved to be too much, Dean had to wonder how he would handle being in Charlie's place.

They checked in and went up to their room. It was far more luxurious and spacious than the typical run-down motels he was used to. A sizeable two-room suite complete with king-sized beds in each room, a large airy central room with two sofas and a rectangular coffee table. Two bathrooms with marble sink and tub. Even a small kitchenette with a hot plate and a microwave.

"I feel like I just entered the penthouse suite at some Hollywood palace," Dean commented as he surveyed the decor. "Might be hard to go back to Motel Sleaze after this one." He found himself wishing Sam was with him. He and his brother had spent most of their lives in motel rooms, and they were both used to the less than glamorous life that accompanied them, but he knew he and Sam would both love to crash here while on a hunt.

"Alright," Charlie proclaimed as she motioned for the three of them to come in close to her as she whipped out a laptop and put it on the living room table. "This is the plan. The mobsters are planning to hold an auction at the auction house down the street. They claim to have a whole load of priceless relics from way back when, but all we care about is this arc of the covenant."

"If it's even the real deal," Dean pointed out as he stood next to Jo. He couldn't help but feel awkward standing beside her, as his mind kept wandering back to what happened between them. He forced himself to focus through mixed feelings.

"Well we'll find out one way or another," Charlie explained. "We'll pose as wealthy investors from New York and check out the scene."

"What's my job?" Claire asked eagerly as she tried to lean over Charlie's shoulder to take a look at the laptop. Charlie glanced at Dean, who fixed her with a stern gaze before turning to Claire.

"You are going to stay here and watch CSI or whatever," Dean replied before Charlie had a chance to respond. Claire's expression soured quickly, but Dean stayed firm.

"Look, you may be tagging along, but that doesn't make you a hunter. You don't have the experience, and there's no way in hell I'm throwing you to a bunch of mobsters." Claire huffed angrily and shoved past Dean into one of the rooms, slamming the door forcefully behind her.

"Asshole," Charlie murmured under her breath before turning to back to the laptop. Dean ignored her. He realized he was being bullheaded and stubborn about Claire, but he didn't care. He wasn't backing down. He hated that she was even there, but if she had to be, he'd do everything in his power to stay alive.

Deep down, Dean knew Claire could handle herself. She'd been on her own for a long time, and she wasn't a child anymore. Her parents were both casualties of angels, and his closest friend was walking around in her dead father's skin. He knew she'd been hardened by all of this through no fault of her own. But maybe it's because of Castiel that Dean felt so protective of the girl. Or perhaps it was because the girl reminded him of himself at her age. Reckless and impulsive. Either way, he'd rather Claire hate him than she be hurt and he resented Charlie for bringing her here.

"Okay when's the auction?" Dean demanded, ignoring the dagger glares he was getting from both women. "We ain't getting any younger."

"Tonight," Charlie replied hotly. "We need to dress to impress; we have to pretend we belong at a party full of rich stuck up slobs. Jo and I are used to living in caves so we could probably use your help with that."

"Fine," Dean replied curtly before heading into the second room. He didn't hear Jo's footsteps behind him, but when he heard the door close and whirled to see her standing there, he sighed.

"I'm not in the mood for another round in the hay," he commented before going to the duffle bag at the edge of the bed and digging through it. He instantly regretted that comment when it provoked a sharp exhale from her as she crossed her arms across her chest.

"You wish," she replied. "Don't read too much into it, snowflake, I was just using you to blow off some steam."

Dean tried to ignore the regret he felt at that statement. It stung a little to hear her say that and it hurt, even more, to have to admit that to himself. Because he knew she was likely being sincere. He realized that living the life that she had and having been through what she had, probably gave her an unattached attitude towards intimacy. It made him a little sad. He wondered if she was even capable of the kind of intimacy her world didn't offer.

"Look before you say anything, I'm not backing down on the Claire thing. I don't know why Charlie thought it would be a good idea to have her along, but as soon as I get the chance, I'm sending her straight back to Jody."

"Good luck," Jo replied. "What's her story, anyway? I mean I get that you feel protective of her, but in my world, age is just a number. If you can fire a weapon, you can fight, and that's that."

Dean sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed, raking a hand through his hair as he searched his mind for the right words. He glanced across the room at Jo as he watched her cross over to lean against the TV in front of him. He met her eyes and held that gaze for a few moments. He thought he saw something in them. Something deep but buried. It convinced him that he could trust her with this.

"Castiel's vessel, Jimmy Novak is Claire's father," Dean explained, slowly. "Claire was just a kid when that all went down. And then, years later, her mother was killed by demons, all because of Castiel's involvement. I know he feels guilty about it, but it still happened. Ever since he took her father away, that girl's been through hell. She's been dealt some pretty hard blows and Sam, Cas, and I brought her to Jody hoping that she could have a normal life away from all that. But instead, she wants to be a hunter."

Jo scoffed, and Dean looked at her with surprise. She shrugged. "She's just the type that Charlie would recruit," she explained. "Lost, misfit, had to grow up too fast."

"Like you?" Dean asked gently, feeling a pang of sympathy. Jo only nodded.

"She busted me out of a damn concentration camp," Jo proclaimed, voice suddenly fragile with emotion. "You have no idea, Dean… no idea how dead I'd be without her. Same for Eileen and Hannah. We all owe her our lives. So yeah, I tend to trust her judgment. Maybe you should too."

Dean said nothing. He didn't know how to respond. It was rare that he encountered someone who had been through as much as he or Sam, but it was clear Jo was still haunted by her experience.

Silence passed between them before Jo cleared her throat and shoved off of her pose leaning against the TV.

"We should get going," she said, quickly finding something on the wall to fixate on as her voice betrayed the emotion she felt. "We have to go find ourselves some rich monkey suits, I guess."

"I have an idea where to go," Dean said gently before getting up. Hesitantly, he draped an arm around her shoulders, cautiously awaiting her reaction. She seemed to accept the embrace at first before stiffening and promptly shrugging away from him.

"I'm fine," she insisted before shoving past him, though he questioned her sincerity. In any case, the two of them headed out for their next adventure.


	13. Chapter 13

In the hours that passed, night fell over Central California, and Sam sat alone in the main hall of the bunker, pensive and contemplating. He worried about their plan, and he felt guilty for getting distracted by vampires when they had so much more on their plate right now.

He was truly worn thin these days. With everything that surrounded him, he could hardly remember a time when he and his closest family weren't facing some end of the world crisis. How did it even come to this at all? There was a time when it was just him and Dean, traveling the country, hunting monsters. That was all. It was simple. Find a case, kill the beast, drive off in search of the next one. He hated it back then, but he regretted ever feeling that way because how could he have predicted things were going to escalate so far?

And why did everything have to fall on them? Why were they always the ones who had to lose friends they loved and sacrifice everything to save a world of people who would never know? This life had aged them both. Most hunters lived short, lonely lives, but the Winchesters had managed to top them all.

Sam didn't hear Eileen's silent approach until the scratch of the chair beside him as she pulled it out to sit down roused him from his thoughts. He glanced at her. The dim light in the room cast shadows across her face as her dark eyes seemed to bore into him.

"I didn't think anyone else was awake," Sam commented quietly. "Well, except for the angels, I suppose." Castiel and Hannah had left the bunker to scout the area for possible demon activity while Annika slept soundly in one of the back rooms.

"I don't need a full night's sleep," Eileen responded as she watched him. "You sort of get used to grabbing a few hours here and there."

Sam regarded her for a moment. The silence between them was pensive and contemplative yet comforting. As he looked at her, he remembered her counterpart from his world. The trained hunter who had been orphaned by a banshee. She was brave, and her unexpected death had infuriated Sam. The injustice of it had hit him to the core.

This Eileen didn't seem so far removed from that other one. She had a calm demeanor, pleasant, and thoughtful. She was strong, but she didn't seem to carry the weight of trauma that he'd gotten used to seeing from her world.

"I hope you don't think I'm prying or being insensitive," Sam began as he met her eyes. "But you don't seem as rough around the edges as your companions."

"I suppose I'm lucky," Eileen suggested with a shrug. "I mean seeing the world destroyed was terrible, living in caves in a post-apocalyptic waste is hard, but I'd already been alone."

"Let me guess, banshee?" Sam surmised, raising a brow. It wasn't hard to figure that this Eileen had lived the same life as her counterpart up until the apocalypse, after all, she had still lost her hearing, and he doubted it was due to anything 'normal' there was no normal in their line of work.

"Yeah," she confirmed. "I was raised by a hunter who took me in. After she died, I was pretty much on my own. I preferred hunting on my own, so I never really formed a bond with anyone until after the apocalypse."

"That's enviable," Sam replied genuinely. He and Dean had left a trail of grief and loss over the years, and it had made them reluctant to form close friendships. They'd lost everyone. They'd even lost each other many times. And thinking about that, Sam felt Dean's absence deeper then. He knew his brother was on the other side of the country, he knew they both had jobs to do, and he felt secure in knowing they'd see each other again eventually, but he couldn't help but wish Dean was with him now.

"Don't get me wrong," Eileen spoke up after a time. She frowned and looked away for a moment, and Sam caught sight of some past grief in her eyes as she turned back to face him. "Michael's angels managed to get their hands on me a few times too. It wasn't pleasant."

Sam pursed his lips as he looked at her, eyes searching for understanding. She sighed and began undoing her blouse, pushing the fabric down to reveal her bare shoulders. Then, she turned her back to him, and he caught sight of all the old scarring peeking out from just above the fabric.

Sam felt a pang of sympathy and a wave of nausea as he looked on her tattered back. The scars were mostly faded, many years old, but they were still there. Sam could only imagine what had been done to cause that kind of damage.

As if to soothe this old pain, Sam reached out, hesitantly at first, and gently grazed a finger along one of the more prominent scars snaking across her shoulder blades. He pulled back, waiting for any reaction to his touch to warn him away. But instead, she only scooted her seat closer to him, leaning into his touch.

Sam thought about it for a moment. Wondering if he should continue, worried about the consequences. He wasn't sure he wanted to go down that road with her. He knew where it could lead; he also knew the pain he'd be in later if he allowed himself to feel anything too deeply.

But the internal pain he felt at seeing the trauma she'd received, and the admiration he felt for her in seeing that she didn't seem as broken as the others- or as him for that matter, made him feel connected to her somehow. He placed a gentle palm on her back, rubbing soothingly, smiling when he heard her sigh contently at the touch.

He rubbed her back with more determination as if his touch alone could somehow erase all these scars and all memory of how they got there from her mind. He knew he couldn't, but at that moment, her pleasure at his touch was rewarding enough.

When the moment was over, and she turned back to him, her dark eyes large and glistening with blissful sensation. "They caught me while I was trying to get an old satellite tower up and running," she began as she pulled her shirt back up, focusing on his lips again. "Guess I must have missed something on the angel warding. They kept me locked in a tiny jail cell for thirty days before Jo and Hannah got me out. They… experimented."

The way she trailed away at the word 'experiment' sickened Sam. Throughout their time dealing with angels, seeing some of the terrible things they were responsible for, none of it compared to these angels from the apocalypse world. He found himself looking forward to going to their world- so he could make them all pay for this.

"I'm sorry," Sam offered. He knew he couldn't take it back and his apology felt hollow, even to himself, especially knowing that this universe existed because of his family.

Eileen said nothing in response. She only looked at him, locking eyes with him, her eyes boring into him like lasers. And then, as if something had gone off inside of her, she pushed her way into his arms, locking lips with him fiercely, urgently, taking him off guard.

Sam responded with as much enthusiasm, pulling her into his arms and deepening the kiss. Her arms snaked around his shoulders, hands gripping him tightly as if she was holding on for dear life. Her kiss, her embrace, it was intense, it was determined.

Heat flared up within him as Sam kissed her with need and desire. His hands fumbled about her body as she eased herself onto his lap, her weight on him sending waves of sensation coursing through his body.

He dare not break the passionate kisses between them as he slipped his hands under her and lifted her up, standing to his full height with her secured to her waist. Subconsciously, he walked them down the hall and into the nearest room, shoving the door shut behind him.

She hardly noticed the change of location as her fingers dug into his shoulder blades. She only became more determined to begin peeling his shirt off of him when he managed to lower her onto her back on what he hoped was an empty bed.

In the back of his mind, Sam's mind sent out all sorts of warning bells. He'd lost too much; this was going to end the same way, he'd better stop before it was too late. But he had to ignore those alarms. He needed her touch, and she needed him. It was already too late.

And so he gave in. They made love. It was the most passionate, sensual, and necessary act he had done in a very long time. He poured all his raw emotion into her, and she responded in kind. He wasn't even aware of the world around him. A volcano could have erupted at that moment, and neither of them would have cared. It was visceral and primal. They rolled around, both their turn on top of the other, both kissing, caressing, and breathing.

When they'd finally been satiated, and she rolled off of him, all Sam could do was lay there, panting. He went numb for a moment, his whole body tingling with sensation as he felt as though he had passed into another reality for a few fleeting seconds. When he finally came back to the present, he turned his gaze to her as she lay beside him.

"Shh.." she pressed a finger to his lips before he could say anything, reminding him that she wouldn't be able to hear her or read his lips in the dark."Don't say anything."

Sam happily complied. He smiled as he felt her gentle kisses on his temple as he closed his eyes. Eventually, the two of them fell asleep in one another's arms.


End file.
